According to a survey of United States federal government agencies released last week by Cisco, an overwhelming majority of respondents believe that coordination of a mobile or remote workforce will be improved through unified communications - the integration of voice, video and data, delivered across a secure Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure.

The survey of 200 federal information technology decision-makers and IT executives showed that wireless laptops, mobile devices and video-conferencing systems are widely used across different agencies of federal government. Nearly 50 percent of federal organizations now use instant messaging. More than 75% of all respondents report that perceptions and concerns over security pose a challenge to an enterprise-wide implementation of an integrated system, with security and reliability cited as the two greatest overall concerns.

More than two-thirds of respondents plan to have the capabilities to provide real-time notification and identification of employees and instant messaging or live chats in their agencies within the next 18 to 24 months.

The survey was commissioned by Cisco and carried out by Market Connections and can be read here.