If you're a small-business owner, one of the dilemmas you will probably wrestle with is whether to use a traditional or an Internet-based phone system.
There are pros and cons to both, although on the residential side, many Canadians have already made the switch to some form of Internet phone. So have many larger companies.
Ooma Inc., an American company, has just launched a new Internet-based phone system called Ooma Office in Canada that is designed for small businesses.
It includes many of the features that a bigger company would have – a virtual receptionist, music on hold, call forwarding and conference bridging – for about one-third of the cost of a traditional landline system.
As with all voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) systems, one of the biggest selling points is that there are no long-distance charges within Canada or the U.S.
"We're really targeting very small businesses, or micro-businesses – typically one to 10 employees," said Jim Gustke, Ooma's vice-president of marketing.
Ooma Telo has been available in Canada for residential users since 2011.
"We discovered that folks were using our home phone service for their small business, so we said, 'Hey, there's something there.' So we decided to launch Ooma Office."
Gustke added that the biggest market for Ooma Office is professional services, like accounting and law firms and small real estate companies.
The Ooma Office system – which is available at Best Buy and Future Shop – sells for $250 for the hardware and $10 per month per line. A company with one main number and three extensions, for example, would pay $30 per month.
It requires no special handsets – you can use your existing analogue desktop phones – and your existing phone number can be ported over or a new number assigned.
Subscribers also can have up to 15 "virtual" extensions. For example, you can have an extension on your cellphone, so when your office phone rings, you can answer it even when you're not in the office.
When it comes to residential net phones, magicJack outsells Ooma, said Angelo Daga, director of merchandising for Best Buy and Future Shop. But magicJack does not currently sell an enterprise system in Canada, so he expects Ooma Office will be a big seller for small-business owners.
"There's a ton of features you'd expect a business to have but at a much lower cost than if you were to go through your telco," Angelo said. "They can have a true business solution for their company's phone system without breaking the bank."
One of the upfront costs of an enterprise landline or even VoIP system is the private branch exchange (PBX) – the central control box that routes calls within a building. With VoIP systems like Ooma, the PBX is hosted in the cloud, so all that is needed for a VoIP phone system is an Internet connection.
But even many enterprise VoIP systems can require IT staff to set up, and many do not offer the range of features, like virtual receptionist and conference bridging, that Ooma Office provides.
Because Ooma Office is simple to install, the company is banking on its low cost, ease of installation and 24-hour customer support to be big selling features for small businesses.
Improved reliability making VoIP a better bet for small businesses
When you place a call on a landline, the signal travels over telephone wires provided by phone companies, and when it's outside a defined local area, your phone company typically charges you for a long-distance call.
When you place a VoIP call, the signal travels over the public Internet. Because there is no middleman – no phone company – there are no long-distance charges.
VoIP has been around for a decade now (Skype being the first major VoIP system) but initially suffered from some shortcomings that delayed widespread adoption.
Some VoIP services didn't support 911 calling – something many net-phone providers have since addressed.
There is also the concern that when the power goes out, the Internet goes down, and the phones with it, whereas landlines are powered by telecoms, not the local power supply, and typically still work even when the power is out.
But the biggest barrier was inconsistent bandwidth, resulting in dropped or fragmented calls.
Thanks to ever-increasing Internet speeds, VoIP is now more reliable, and the increased use of cloud hosting and mobile devices is further accelerating VoIP adoption, said Todd Carothers, executive vice-president of products and marketing for CounterPath, a Vancouver company that makes enterprise VoIP systems.
"The growth of the smartphone and tablet is absolutely accelerating the change and adoption to VoIP," Carothers said.
Because it is Internet based, VoIP allows for much greater integration with smartphones, tablets and computers. For example, one of the services Ooma provides is voicemail-to-email so when someone leaves you a voice-mail message, you get a translation into email that you can read on your smartphone.
"A lot of folks are on the go today, so if they want to be able to have their communications on the go, doing a VoIP-type based solution is the best thing to do," Carothers said.
"Over 60% of businesses are using VoIP for telecom, and 40% TDM, which is analogue."
Carothers believes VoIP will eventually replace traditional telephone systems altogether.
Canada lags other developed nations when it comes to VoIP adoption, however. Carothers said that in Canada, 40% of broadband subscribers have a VoIP service, compared with 90% in France.
