PBX Telephone System

WHAT IS A PBX SYSTEM

PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange, which is a private telephone network used within a company or organisation. The users of the PBX phone system can communicate internally (within their company) and externally (with the outside world), using different communication channels like Voice over IP, ISDN or analog. A PBX also allows you to have more phones than physical phone lines (PTSN) and allows free calls between users. A PBX system provides features like calls transfers, voicemail, call recording, interactive voice menus (IVRs) and call queues.

Traditional PBXs would have their own proprietary phones, such that there would be a way to re-use these phones with a different system. This means that we either have system-lock-in (we are bound to the same system because changing system means also changing phones, which makes it prohibitively expensive to break away) or vendor-lock-in (we are bound to the same vendor because the phones are only usable with systems from the same vendor, sometimes only within a particular range of systems).

Time and technology, however, have changed the consumer telephony landscape, with the flag-bearer being the Open-Standards-based IP PBX. The point of the “IP” in this new era is that the phone calls are delivered using the Internet Protocol as the underlying transport technology.

PBX phone systems are available as hosted or virtual solutions and as on-premise solutions to be run on your own hardware.

With a traditional PBX, you are typically constrained to a certain maximum number of outside telephone lines (SIP trunks) and to a certain maximum number of internal telephone devices or extensions. Users of the PBX phone system (phones or extensions) share the outside lines for making external phone calls.

Switching to an IP PBX brings with it many benefits and opens possibilities, allowing for almost unlimited growth in terms of extensions and trunks, and introducing more complex functions that are more costly and difficult to implement with a traditional PBX, such as:

Ring Groups
Queues
Digital Receptionists
Voicemail
Reporting

3CX has established itself as the leading IP-PBX manufacturer, ticking all the check boxes for any business looking for enterprise-grade features and benefits.

HOW DOES A PBX PHONE SYSTEM WORK?

Image Source: 3CX

In the past, PBX phone systems relied on complex analog switches manned by telephone operators. Modern systems use voice-over-IP (VoIP) systems to send digital signals to and from users. VoIP technology is key to accessing the most advanced features that PBX phone systems have to offer, such as voicemail-to-email, call transfers and call routing.

Once the system converts an incoming call to a digital signal, the system can manage the signal the same way it would any other digital information. This is how digital PBX systems convert and route incoming calls to any device and anywhere. Maintaining an on-premises digital PBX phone system requires a significant investment in the set-up costs. The equipment and on-going support can be expensive, and only highly trained specialists can repair, maintain, or update these systems.

PBX systems are not a one-size-fits-all answer. Organisations can use bespoke hosted PBX solutions through a managed service provider without having to pay a large up-front investment. The Technology Group offer IP-PBX infrastructure as a managed service, and pay per user on a monthly fee basis. Get in touch if you would like to speak to a IP-PBX specialist about your companies telephony infrastructure.

IP-PBX AS A MANAGED SERVICE PACKAGE

The Technology Group provide 3CX as either a license for installation on premise, or as part of a fully managed service with private hosting, priced per user per month, with a handset included and hosted in our Tier 3 data centre.