PBX phone systems were the standard in recent years. These were needed to handle the huge telephony needs of big business. But a PBX is expensive, high
maintenance, and difficult to upgrade when the company needs change.
With the ubiquitous Internet availability, businesses of all sizes have another option for their demanding telephony needs. This is a VoIP system.
What is VoIP?
VoIP is the acronym for “Voice Over Internet Protocol.”
Protocols are the policies for how all things related to the Internet should work. These rules are in place to make sure that people around the globe are working with
the same rules which will help the Internet work best.
So, VoIP is the international standards for how the human voice can be transmitted over the Internet.
Traditional Communications
Consider the fixed landline in your home. Your home phone has a physical wire which is connected to a local telephone pole. That wire then connects to a group of
others at the telephone company’s central office. And finally, the utility has lines to all of their other central offices where lines exist.
When call from your home, the utility sends your call over the lines to the line of the person you are calling using the central office locations.
To make this happen, the phone company uses a Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN. This process uses dedicated lines and is relatively costly because of the
need for all of the physical wiring and equipment.
PBX System
An office business has physical lines which come into the building from the utility company, and then physical lines which connect each phone within the building to the
main wired control panel as well.
Traditionally, the business’ PBX or “Private Branch Exchange” would route the calls that come into the building for the different extensions in the system.
While this set up is certainly effective and has its place in certain operations, a small business owner may consider this larger system more complicated to administer.
In addition, PBX is often cost prohibitive for medium or small businesses to purchase, leaving a small business owner without many options.
VoIP Phone Systems
Many offices of all sizes are now moving away from PBX, and embracing VoIP technology.
Businesses can use this newer technology to address their telephony needs with ease of administration, the relatively easy ability to upgrade their systems, as well as
the number one advantage … reduced costs.
This advanced technology allow large, medium, and small business communication to operate over their existing data network.
Where in the past, each phone and each computer had to have its own line to connect to the central network of the building, now only one is necessary.
Just as your computer sends out digital data over the corporate Ethernet network, your voice over IP phone can turn your voice into digital data and send it the same
way and over the same cable.
Also, when wireless networks are available, the transmissions can use the wireless network as well. Cellular phones are one example of this wireless technology.
When you look at VoIP vs. PBX, it is easy to see that VoIP is the technology being adopted now, and large PBX systems are an effective traditional communications
method, but a cumbersome one.
Just as how, fax machines were the way to pass documents from one location to another, but now, we use e-mail … PBX has been the way to route calls but now
VoIP is taking over our telephony needs.
By: Andrew Stratton
Posts Tagged ‘Private Branch Exchange’
VoIP vs PBX – VoIP is Winning the Battle
March 23rd, 2010VoIP PBX – Next Big Thing to PBX System
February 9th, 2010
Few years back, many people thought that advanced VoIP technology is going to be the “next big thing” in the telecom domain. Yes, now VoIP has a major impact on providers in the market which has turned out to be more of a commodity than a paradigm-changer. The main reason for the popularity of voice over IP solution is mobility, flexibility and scalability. The inherent benefits such as cost effectiveness and organisational productivity cannot be ignored. As a matter of fact, these factors have motivated businesses to manage their work with utmost efficiency. For making the various things possible, one solution is VoIP PBX.
The VoIP PBX system is a hallmark for businesses to inculcate double profits in quick time. This system permits the users to save substantial amount on long distance as well as international calls. Most importantly, business that manage calls over the IP PBX VoIP solution provide comfortable integration with existing PSTN telecommunication system.
An VoIP PBX system is a Internet protocol private branch exchange. This exchange is a business telephone system which is designed to deliver voice over a data network and is interoperable with the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). With low upgradation cost, almost every business users can make the changes as it is done through a specific software. As a matter of fact, the VoIP gateways can be combined with traditional PBX functionality which enables the businesses to use their managed intranet to reduce long distance expenses as well as enjoy the benefits of a single network for voice and data. The advanced CTI features of this IP system give greater cost savings, greater mobility and increased redundancy.
To be more specific, an IP-PBX exists as a hardware object or virtually, as a software system. This is because a major part of IPBX functionality is provided in software. The best part is that this system is relatively inexpensive in nature. One can easily add other functionalities such as conferencing, XML-RPC control of live calls, Interactive voice response (IVR)and TTS/ASR (text to speech/automatic speech recognition). Moreover, these advanced system supports public switched telephone network (PSTN) interconnection ability which supports both analogue and digital circuits, Voice over IP protocols including SIP, Inter-Asterisk eXchange, H.323, Jabber and GoogleTalk.
Therefore, it can be said that this high-end technology simplifies communication infrastructure at ease. The VoIP PBX system permits the users to co-ordinate with their multiple offices all around the globe with the support of an unified platform. Interestingly, the single IP PBX VoIP server has the potential to serve more than 1,500 users at the same time. As such, it seems to be an attractive option which can support business enterprise to gain more without any concern.
In comparison with a conventional PBX system, the users require separate networks for sending and receiving the voice and data communication but, VoIP PBX employs the converged data and voice communication over a single IP network. This increases the value of systems to a significant extent.
Moreover, the IP PBX VoIP also provides flexibility to the growing or new enterprises, as it can reduce the long-term investments and maintenance costs. The biggest factor that contributes to the adoption of anything new by the enterprises is cost involved in it. In the case of the VoIP PBX solutions, the costs are within limits of the enterprises. Nowadays, the business users do not have to spend more from their pockets for this system, as cost is coming down. The users must opt for the provider that offers bundled services and features. These advanced solutions enable the business users to make the most of services such as voice extensions or updation.
To conclude, the hybrid solutions offer greater scalability advantage when compared to the traditional PBX systems.
By: Kristen Kiya
