Canadian SMBs save big with hosted VoIP services

Toronto lawyer Zak Muscovitch can take calls wherever he is, on a desk phone, mobile phone or computer. Incoming faxes show up in his e-mail. "I get voice mail without having to log into anywhere," he says. His secretary can even transfer a call that comes into his Toronto office to his laptop in an overseas hotel room.

And the equipment this requires in the office of Muscovitch Law Firm? None. It runs on RingCentral, a service that marries Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and cloud computing. Instead of an IP private branch exchange (IPBX), the law firm subscribes to a service that runs on San Mateo, Calif.-based RingCentral Inc.'s servers, to which its phones connect via the office internet connection.

RingCentral, which formally started marketing its service in Canada in August, joined a growing list of providers of cloud VoIP or hosted VoIP services.

Among its various internet and telephony services, Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. offers Hosted PBX. Starting at around $40 per user per month, it can support from a handful of seats to a couple of hundred, says Jeff Lorenz, vice-president of sales and marketing for Primus Business Services.

NetVoice Communications, a Vancouver firm recently acquired by telecom provider Glentel Inc. of Burnaby, B.C., offers its Managed IP PBX Service to customers of all sizes, also at about $40 per user per month, dropping to around $20 per user in large installations, says George Pajari, project manager for IP voice services.