The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50808
2008 Canadian Lawyer Buyers' Guide it came down to a purely economic deci- sion." Two things are different about the technology with hosted IP PBX services. First, all the PBX functions — auto- mated call answering, call routing, voice mail, etc. — are controlled by software running on a phone switch, a special kind of computer, lo- cated at the service provider's data cen- tre, instead of at your office. You share the switch with other cus- tomers, but have a pri- vate, secure "virtual" system on it. Secondly, it's an IP TECH SUPPORT is no capital investment. You pay $40 or $50 per month per employee depending on the phone. Some firms, especially those with system. Internal calls, instead of travelling over dedicated tele- phone wiring, are car- ried digitally — as IP packets — on your local area network. External calls travel to the service pro- vider's switch over a dedicated high-speed data connection or sometimes over your firm's high-speed internet service. But how the technology works is own phone systems]. I sit there and think, 'But what's the real business value of that?'" organizations still think they should be [managing their FOX GROUP CONSULTING — ROBERTA FOX, "A lot of larger multiple offices, may also be able to save significantly on overall communications costs. With most hosted IP PBX services, you don't pay long distance charges for calls between offices. They count as local calls because they stay on the provider's private IP network or travel over the inter- net. This can produce significant savings, since calls between offices usually rep- resent a large part of the long distance bill for multi-office firms. Making those calls is also much easier because the hosted PBX treats phones in all the offices as if they were in one office. Dialing a col- largely — though, as we'll see, not en- tirely — beside the point. The main point is the business benefits. The most important may be reduced capital in- vestment. "That's attractive to a lot of organizations," says Jayanth Angl, a se- nior research analyst at Info-Tech Re- search Group, a London, Ont.-based IT consulting and research firm. "But there is probably stronger demand for it among small and medium-size busi- nesses where resources are apt to be more constrained." Some hosted PBX service provid- ers want you to buy the IP phone sets, for $75 to $200 each. That's one of the downsides of migrating from a tradi- tional telephone system to IP, whether it's a hosted or on-premise solution — you can't use existing phones. Primus is unusual in offering a bundled monthly price that includes local dial tone, PBX functionality, ongoing maintenance and management — and phone sets. So there 30 A UGUST 2008 www. Law ye rmag.com league across the country is not only a local call but can be made by dialing a four-digit extension. And the reception- ist at one office can transfer calls to an extension in another. Most small and even medium-size firms lack the skills to manage a phone system, so they have to pay others to do it. A hosted solution eliminates that problem: ongoing maintenance is in- cluded in the price. This could be an attraction for bigger firms too. Many organizations are looking to reduce their IT management burden so they can "focus on core competencies." And more should be doing this, ar- gues telecom consultant Roberta Fox, president of Fox Group Consulting. "A lot of larger organizations still think they should be [managing their own phone systems]," Fox says. "I sit there and think, 'But what's the real business value of that?'" Many of the economic benefits of hosted services flow from the fact that providers can share advanced enter- prise-grade PBX features across mul-