Business phone systems for Canadian small businesses
A cloud business phone system carries your calls over your internet connection instead of a copper line, and the switchboard lives in a data centre instead of a box on your wall. This page explains how that works, what it costs, what bandwidth it needs, how long porting your numbers takes, and the one thing about 911 that catches Canadian buyers out. North Star installs and runs these systems across BC, Alberta and Yukon.
What is a VoIP business phone system?
A VoIP business phone system converts your voice into data packets and sends them over the internet to a hosted PBX, which routes the call to whoever should answer it. VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Because the switching happens in software rather than in on-site hardware, one system can put the same business number on a desk phone, a laptop and a mobile at the same time, and adding a user is a configuration change rather than a wiring job.
SIP sets the call up.
Session Initiation Protocol is the part that rings the phone, negotiates who is calling whom, and hangs up at the end. It carries no audio itself. A SIP trunk is the connection between your system and the public telephone network.
RTP carries the audio.
Once the call connects, Real-time Transport Protocol streams the voice. It is deliberately unreliable: a late packet is dropped rather than resent, because a retransmitted syllable arriving 200 ms behind is worse than a gap.
The PBX lives in a data centre.
Auto-attendants, ring groups, queues and voicemail run as software in the provider's cloud. That is the difference between a cloud phone system and the on-premises PBX it replaces, and it is why feature changes take minutes.
Cloud phone system, on-premises PBX, or traditional lines
Most Canadian small businesses replacing a phone system are choosing between three things. The honest summary is that cloud wins on cost and flexibility, on-premises still wins in a couple of narrow cases, and copper lines survive mainly because of what is attached to them.
| Cloud phone system | On-premises PBX | Traditional analogue or PRI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up-front cost | Handsets only, if you want them | PBX hardware, licensing, install | Line install and any key system |
| Ongoing cost | Per user, per month | Maintenance, plus SIP trunks | Per line, typically the highest |
| Adding a user | A change in a web portal | Licence, and sometimes hardware | A new line and a site visit |
| Remote and hybrid staff | Native, same number anywhere | Needs a VPN or SBC to work well | Call forwarding and workarounds |
| Survives an internet outage | No, calls need failover configured | Internal calls yes, external no | Yes, analogue lines carry their own power |
| Still the right answer when | Almost always, under 100 users | You have strict data-residency rules or heavy legacy integration | You have an elevator, alarm panel, or fax that must stay on copper |
That last row is the one people forget. Elevator phones, fire panels and some alarm systems are certified against analogue lines, and ripping the line out to save a monthly fee can put you offside your own inspection. North Star audits what is on your copper before quoting a cutover, and it is normal to keep one or two analogue lines and move everything else.
What does a business phone system cost in Canada?
Plans for Canadian small businesses generally run $20 to $50 CAD per user per month for hosting and calling. Desk phones are a one-time $100 to $300 per handset depending on model. Those are market ranges rather than a North Star rate card, because the platform and the call pattern drive the number and quoting a single figure before seeing either would be a guess.
Seats, not extensions.
You pay per person who needs a line, not per device. One user with a desk phone, a softphone and a mobile app is one seat. Shared devices in a warehouse or a boardroom are usually a cheaper common-area seat.
Unlimited is rarely unlimited.
Canada-wide calling is standard. Toll-free minutes, international, and heavy outbound calling are usually metered. If you run a call centre or dial the US all day, get that priced separately rather than assumed.
One-time work is real work.
North Star charges a one-time setup and provisioning fee covering the number port, the call-flow build, handset configuration and staff walkthrough. It is quoted up front against your actual extension count.
Where it saves money is usually not the monthly line item. It is the site visit you stop paying for every time someone joins, moves desk or leaves, and the long-distance bill on a multi-site business where inter-office calls stop being long distance.
What internet speed do you need for VoIP?
Budget roughly 100 kbps up and down per concurrent call on the common G.711 codec, which is about 87 kbps of audio plus packet overhead. G.729 compresses the same call to roughly 30 to 40 kbps at a small cost in fidelity. Concurrent calls, not staff count, is the number that matters: a twenty-person office rarely has more than six calls up at once.
Under 150 ms one way.
Past roughly 150 ms one-way delay, people start talking over each other because the natural turn-taking gap disappears. Terrestrial connections in BC and Alberta are comfortably inside this. Geostationary satellite is not.
Under 30 ms of variation.
Jitter is inconsistency in packet arrival, and it is the usual cause of choppy audio on a connection that speed-tests fine. It is also the symptom that a busy uplink and no traffic prioritisation produces.
Under 1 percent.
Voice tolerates a little loss because dropped packets are simply skipped. Above about 1 percent it is audible as clipped words, and above 3 percent calls become hard work.
Raw speed is almost never the constraint on a modern business connection. Prioritisation is. Without a QoS rule putting voice ahead of everything else, one large file upload can ruin every call in the building on a connection that tests at 500 Mbps. North Star configures that rule on the firewall as part of the install, and measures jitter and loss before cutover rather than after the complaints start.
Starlink deserves a specific note, because a lot of the businesses we work with in the Cariboo, the Peace and on the coast are on it. Its low-earth-orbit latency is usually fine for voice, unlike older geostationary satellite, but satellite handovers can produce jitter spikes that a call notices. It works, and it works better with a call-quality-first router configuration. See our Starlink guide for the deployment detail.
How 911 works on a VoIP phone system in Canada
This is the part that catches buyers out, and it is worth understanding before you sign anything. A copper line has a fixed civic address attached to it, so dialling 911 tells the operator where you are. A VoIP call does not inherently know where it is, because the device can be anywhere the internet reaches.
The address is registered, not detected.
Canadian VoIP providers are required by the CRTC to offer 911 service, and for a phone that stays at one location the registered civic address is passed to the emergency operator. It is only as accurate as the address on file, which is why it has to be updated when you move.
A softphone in a hotel is a problem.
When someone uses a laptop softphone or mobile app away from the office, the registered address is wrong. Providers handle this differently and some route nomadic 911 calls through an operator who asks for your location. Assume it is not automatic.
Brief the staff, keep a mobile.
Tell people that in an emergency a cell phone is the reliable option, put the civic address on a label near shared handsets, and keep addresses current for every site. On multi-floor or multi-building sites, ask your provider about per-location addressing.
North Star registers and verifies the civic address for every site during provisioning, sets per-location addressing where the platform supports it, and hands over a one-page brief you can give staff. It is unglamorous and it is the single most important thing on the cutover checklist.
Worth reading yourself: the CRTC publishes plain-language guidance on how 911 works with internet-based phone service, including the limits on nomadic use. CRTC, 911 service and VoIP. Your obligations and your provider's capabilities are worth confirming in writing rather than taking from any vendor page, including this one.
Can you keep your existing phone numbers?
Yes. Local number portability means your numbers belong to you rather than to your carrier, and they move. A straightforward port of a handful of local numbers usually completes in about one to two weeks; a larger port, a PRI, or anything with a billing dispute attached takes longer. Nothing is cut over until the port date is confirmed, so there is no window where calls go nowhere.
The name on the bill.
The account holder details on the port request have to match the losing carrier's records exactly. A business that has changed name, or a bill still in a former owner's name, is the most common reason a port is rejected and has to be resubmitted.
An outstanding balance.
An unpaid account can hold a port. Worth checking before you set a date with staff and customers.
Bundles and contracts.
Numbers bundled with internet or TV sometimes need the bundle unpicked first. Porting the number away can also cancel the internet it was sold with, which is a surprise best had in advance.
North Star submits and chases the port, keeps the old lines live in parallel until the new system is answering correctly, and schedules the actual cutover outside your busy hours. Toll-free numbers port too, on a separate process.
What happens to your phones if the internet goes down?
Handsets in the building stop working, because they need the internet to reach the hosted PBX. Incoming calls do not have to stop, and this is the difference between a planned system and an unplanned one. Because the switching is in the cloud, the provider can reroute a call the instant your site stops responding, which is something an on-premises PBX sitting dark in your server room cannot do.
Failover to mobiles.
Set critical numbers to roll to a named cell phone after a few seconds of no answer from the site. Cheap, effective, and the single rule most worth having in place before you need it.
A second connection.
An LTE or 5G backup on the firewall keeps calls up through a fibre cut. Worth it where the phone ringing is the business: dispatch, service desks, clinics, anything with an on-call rotation.
Somewhere else to answer.
Multi-site businesses can route to whichever office is up. Cheaper than redundant internet and often more useful, because a human answers instead of a voicemail box.
Small business phone systems: what actually matters under 20 users
Most of what gets marketed at small businesses is enterprise contact-centre functionality nobody will configure. Under about twenty users, four things decide whether the system was worth changing.
Calls reach a human quickly.
A short auto-attendant, or better, a ring group that rings three people at once. Nine-option phone trees exist to protect large organisations from their customers, and a small business has the opposite problem.
Voicemail actually gets read.
Voicemail-to-email with transcription, delivered to a shared mailbox rather than one person's handset. Missed messages sitting in a dead extension is the most common failure of the system it replaced.
Field staff have the business number.
The mobile app means a tradesperson calls a customer back from the business line instead of a personal cell, and the number stays with the business when they leave.
Someone else changes it.
You can edit call flows yourself in a portal, and most owners never will. Having the same people who run your IT change the after-hours greeting before a long weekend is the practical version of self-service.
Teams Phone, a dedicated platform, or 3CX
There is no single right answer, and the honest determinant is what you already run rather than which platform reviews best.
Microsoft Teams Phone.
If your staff already live in Teams, adding calling with a Microsoft calling plan or Direct Routing avoids running a second system and a second directory. Strongest where most work is at a computer. Weaker where you need lots of physical handsets.
A dedicated cloud platform.
Reception, warehouses, shops and clinics want real phones that work when the computer is off. Dedicated platforms do handsets, paging and door intercoms better, and their call-flow tooling is generally more capable.
3CX.
Self-hosted or hosted, licensed per system rather than per user, which changes the arithmetic at higher headcounts. More knobs, and more to look after. A reasonable fit where someone technical is involved.
North Star deploys UniFi Talk for smaller sites already on UniFi networking, Teams Phone for Microsoft-heavy shops, and 3CX where the requirements are unusual. The recommendation comes out of what your network and your Microsoft tenancy already look like, which is a thing we can see before quoting.
Is VoIP secure?
The call itself can be encrypted end to end in transit: TLS protects the SIP signalling and SRTP encrypts the audio. Ask whether both are enabled by default, because unencrypted SIP over the open internet is still shipped as a default by some providers. The bigger real-world risk is not eavesdropping, though.
Toll fraud.
An attacker who gets into your phone system dials expensive international destinations, often overnight or over a long weekend, and the bill is yours. Weak or default extension passwords are the usual way in.
Limit what the system can dial.
International calling off by default and enabled per user who needs it, spend caps and alerting on the account, strong per-extension credentials, and no handset provisioning exposed to the public internet.
Voicemail is a mailbox.
Voicemail-to-email puts recordings and transcripts into email, which means your phone system inherits your email security. Worth remembering if the calls discuss anything sensitive.
What North Star delivers
One team for the phones and the network they run on, which matters because most call-quality problems are network problems.
A network assessment, not a guess.
We measure jitter, latency and loss on your actual connection, audit what is on your copper lines, and count concurrent calls rather than staff. That is what the proposal is built on.
Porting and provisioning handled.
We submit and chase the port, build the call flows, configure and label the handsets, register the 911 civic addresses, and keep the old lines parallel until the new system answers correctly.
QoS configured on the firewall.
Voice prioritised ahead of everything else, VLAN separation where the network supports it, and the config documented so the next person can see why it is there.
Changes without a service call.
New starter, someone leaving, a changed after-hours greeting before a long weekend. Included in a managed plan rather than billed as a visit.
Business phone systems by city
City pages for VoIP rollouts across BC, Alberta and Yukon: number porting, Teams Phone, and desk-phone provisioning. In the Peace Country, start with business phone systems in Grande Prairie.
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Start Your Free Assessment Back to CloudFrequently asked questions
How much does a business phone system cost per user in Canada?
Cloud plans for Canadian small businesses generally run $20 to $50 CAD per user per month for hosting and calling, plus a one-time $100 to $300 per desk phone if you want handsets. North Star charges a one-time setup and provisioning fee covering the number port, call-flow build and handset configuration, quoted up front against your actual extension count. Those monthly figures are market ranges rather than a North Star rate card, because the platform and your calling pattern drive the number.
What internet speed do I need for a VoIP phone system?
Budget about 100 kbps of upload and download per concurrent call on the common G.711 codec, or roughly 30 to 40 kbps on G.729. Concurrent calls rather than staff count is the figure that matters, and a twenty-person office rarely exceeds six at once. Latency should stay under 150 ms one way, jitter under 30 ms and packet loss under 1 percent. On any modern business connection the constraint is almost never raw speed; it is whether voice traffic is prioritised on the firewall.
How does 911 work on a VoIP phone system in Canada?
Canadian VoIP providers are required by the CRTC to offer 911 service, but a VoIP call does not inherently know where it is, so the address passed to the emergency operator is the civic address registered on the account. It is only as accurate as what is on file, which is why it must be updated when you move. For staff using a softphone or mobile app away from the office the registered address is wrong, and some providers route those calls via an operator who asks for your location instead. Brief staff that a cell phone is the reliable option in an emergency.
Can I keep my existing business phone numbers?
Yes. Local number portability means the numbers belong to you rather than your carrier. A simple port of a few local numbers usually completes in about one to two weeks; larger ports, PRIs and accounts with a billing dispute take longer. Nothing is cut over until the port date is confirmed, and North Star keeps your old lines live in parallel until the new system is answering correctly. The commonest cause of a rejected port is account-holder details that do not match the losing carrier's records exactly.
What happens to my phones if the internet goes down?
Handsets in the building stop working, because they need the internet to reach the hosted PBX. Incoming calls do not have to stop. Because the switching happens in the cloud, calls can be rerouted the moment your site stops responding: to a named mobile, to another office, or over an LTE backup connection on the firewall. Configuring that failover before you need it is the difference between an outage customers notice and one they do not.
Is a cloud phone system secure?
Calls can be encrypted in transit, with TLS protecting the SIP signalling and SRTP encrypting the audio. Ask whether both are on by default, because unencrypted SIP is still a default with some providers. The larger real-world risk is toll fraud rather than eavesdropping: an attacker who gets into the system dials expensive international destinations and the bill is yours. Weak extension passwords are the usual entry point, so keep international calling off by default, set spend alerts, and use strong per-extension credentials.
Should I use Microsoft Teams Phone or a dedicated VoIP platform?
It depends on what you already run. If your staff live in Microsoft 365 and most work happens at a computer, Teams Phone with a Microsoft calling plan or Direct Routing avoids running a second system and directory. If you need real handsets at reception, in a warehouse, a shop or a clinic, a dedicated cloud platform handles physical phones, paging and door intercoms better and has more capable call-flow tooling. North Star also deploys UniFi Talk on smaller UniFi sites and 3CX where requirements are unusual.
Do I have to give up all my analogue phone lines?
Usually not, and you should check before you do. Elevator phones, fire panels and some alarm systems are certified against analogue lines, and removing the line to save a monthly fee can put you offside your own inspection. It is normal to keep one or two analogue lines for that equipment and move everything else to VoIP. North Star audits what is connected to your copper before quoting a cutover.
Does VoIP work on Starlink?
Generally yes. Starlink's low-earth-orbit latency is usually inside the range voice needs, unlike older geostationary satellite service, so it is a workable connection for a business phone system in areas without fibre. Satellite handovers can cause jitter spikes that a call will notice, so it benefits from a router configuration that prioritises voice, and from failover to mobile for critical numbers. Many of the businesses we support in the Cariboo, the Peace and on the coast run phones this way.