Buying a phone system has never been that easy. Comparing features, expansion options, and costs can result in pages of comparison charts. Now, you can add some more rows to those charts as the phonesystem continues to evolve.

These days, you'll hear terms like "unPBXs", "communication servers", "LAN-based telephone systems," "computer telephony," and "IP telephony" tossed around in sales presentations. Boil down these big words, though, and you'll find that it simply means companies have come up with new ways to build and implement phone systems. In the old days, traditional phone systems were simply self-contained and built on proprietary components. Now, new generation phone systems incorporate the more openly designed computer into their design.

What does it mean to the potential phone system buyer? Aside from the additional confusion brought on by these changes, there are some noteworthy advances. First, there are new phone system features to consider when making a purchase. Probably one of the niftiest is the ability to place calls over the Internet, also known as Voice over IP or VoIP. This cutting edge, which some might reasonably argue as being bleeding edge, feature has been available for a few years on personal computers and is just beginning to be rolled out on phonesystems.

Another new feature has phone systems utilizing existing computer network cabling. This gets rid of the need to have two sets of cables snake throughout the office, saving significant installation costs, but may require even more robust backup for the computer network. In a similar strike at saving both money and space, users now have the ability to place and receive calls by using their computer equipped with a telephone headset as their telephone. Finally, there is Web-browser based phone system administration that allows an administrator to no longer toil in a small windowless room when managing the phone system.

The other advantage of these new phone systems is that high-end features that were previously only available as high-cost add-on features are now available at little to no additional cost. Voice mail, for example, is something you can find as a standard feature on next generation phone systems. If you were to add it to a traditional phone system, you would typically look at paying an additional few thousand dollars at minimum.

Advanced computer telephony features are also typically bundled in next generation systems. These features range from unified messaging where you can manage your voice mail and e-mail in one common in box to call center applications that allow you to route incoming calls.

Keep in mind that while these new and advanced features sound terrific on paper, they can be less than optimal under actual operating conditions. Careful checking of not only the features but also the operating requirements is a must. In addition, not every phone system dealer has systems that supports any or all of these features. Over time, though, every dealer should have at least one computer-based offering.