By Tim McElligott

For all of the cost savings and feature richness promised by voice over IP technology, the industry has struggled with its ability to provide consistently smooth implementations. However, a recent report from US telecommunications research firm Atlantic-ACM shows that satisfaction is on the rise with the enterprise.

ACM’s 2009 Business Connectivity Report Card shows that satisfaction levels this year for Ethernet, Internet access, IP virtual private networks (VPN) and VoIP have all increased.

Now in its fourth year, the Business Connectivity Report Card rates carrier performance in several categories after collecting feedback from business users over the past 12 months of service. Dr Judy Reed Smith, chief executive of Atlantic-ACM, said that year-over-year increases in quality scores for these services show that carriers are refining the services they consider crucial to future revenue growth opportunities.

That satisfaction could be a factor for at least one company whose fortunes are tied indirectly to that enterprise market: BroadSoft. In August, Inc. Magazine ranked BroadSoft in its Top 50% of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies based largely on its three-year sales growth of 130 percent.

BroadSoft develops software that enables telecommunications service providers to deliver hosted telephony and multimedia services to large enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses and residential subscribers. It also has launched a joint Hosted Unified Communications offering with Microsoft. Earlier this year, in March, BroadSoft and Tandberg launched a hosted business video solution that provides video communications capabilities to enterprises on a Software-as-a-service basis through service providers.

And there aren’t many CEOs of software companies who have both entrepreneurial awards from Ernst & Young and hold technology patents. But BroadSoft’s Michael Tessler has both. He has two patents in the area of local switching, AIN, and advanced call management services. And he will be among the panelists at the VON Conference & Expo this week in a keynote session called, “The Future of Enterprise Telecommunications.”

Tessler will be joined by VON Editor-in-Chief Richard Martin, who will moderate the panel, and Jeff Pergal, I/S BT Communications and Telephony Manager, American Family Insurance. The panel takes place on Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 8:30 a.m.