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TECH SUPPORT 2008 Canadian Lawyer Buyers' Guide Calling all lawyers Telephones are still an integral communications tool and choosing the right system for your office is crucial. Hosted IP PBX services have big advantages over traditional systems. BY GERRY BLACKWE LL s important as computers and e- mail have become, most lawyers still rely heavily on the good old telephone for communicating with cli- ents. Which is why choosing the right phone system for your office can be cru- cial. In the past, all but the smallest firms and sole practitioners had only one op- tion: purchase and install a usually ex- pensive and technically daunting phone system and then pay somebody to man- age and maintain it. Today, there's an- other option, one that small and medi- um-size firms especially, and networks of small firms or sole practitioners, should consider: a hosted IP PBX (pri- vate branch exchange) service. What are the big advantages of a host- ed solution? Low or no capital invest- ment, predictable monthly costs, no IT or phone system expertise required, sig- nificantly reduced total cost of owner- ship in some cases — plus new features and applications enabled by the IP (in- ternet protocol) voice technology. In Canada, it's still a new and fairly radical approach. The U.S. market is a little further ahead. We haven't found any Canadian law firms using these ser- vices yet, but the benefits are the same no matter what your business. Integrus Brand Solutions Inc., for ex- ample, was considering replacing its ag- ing Nortel Meridian PBX, but the Toronto marketing firm opted instead for a hosted PBX service from Primus Telecommuni- cations Canada after comparing the am- ortized cost of installing and operating a new PBX to the monthly costs for the Primus service. Over a three-year period, www. Primus was 25 per cent cheaper. "Plus we were looking at no capital outlay, easier implementation, and the fact that it had all the VoIP [voice over IP] features we wanted," says Justin Aniballi, an advisor to the firm's president. "Mainly, though, Law ye rmag.com A UGUST 2008 29 ILLUSTRATION: JEREMY BRUNEEL