Time for a VoIP PBX phone system?

Written by Steven Bryan

Over the last 30 years, the telecommunications industry has grown at an almost alarming rate. Innovations such as cellular phones, email, and the Web have forever changed the way that businesses and clients communicate with each other. One of the most impressive combinations of technology might be the right choice to save your business money: a VoIP PBX phone system.

What does VoIP PBX do?

As the world jumped on the Internet, some companies created voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) to let individuals make telephone calls over the net instead of traditional phone lines. When using VoIP, your voice is digitized and transmitted via the Internet to the person you are calling. This type of phone call tends to be less expensive – free, in some cases – and a lot clearer than conversations held on analog lines. It doesn't require the person on the other end to have a special phone, either.

Now the power of VoIP is being harnessed for business phone systems, instead of just consumers. Medium to large businesses tend to use a private branch exchange (PBX) to manage their incoming and outgoing phone calls. These popular systems give each employee their own telephone extension, which can be reached internally by another employee or by a client calling from the outside. The PBX provides essential business telephone features like voicemail, call forwarding, auto-attendants, and more. VoIP PBX phone systems add new features and money-saving capabilities to those familiar tools, making them a popular choice.

Using your VoIP PBX phone system

By combining the power of VoIP with the convenience of a PBX, you create a VoIP PBX phone system that has some truly impressive features:

• Visual voice mail. Your staff can search through an onscreen list of voice mail messages, selecting the most urgent ones first. Some VoIP PBX systems will even turn messages into written text using voice recognition software.
• Portability. A traditional phone system requires quite a bit of wiring and rewiring, especially when adding and moving extensions. VoIP PBX systems, on the other hand, are the ultimate in portability and can be easily moved around the office. Because they use your existing local area network (LAN) or broadband connection, adding another user just means updating the software.
• Every office is local. If your company has staff members working in offices around the country or the world, long-distance telephone charges can really add up. If everyone is connected to the same VoIP PBX phone system, however, calling a remote office is exactly the same as calling a co-worker in the same building: no more toll charges.

Hosted VoIP PBX systems

You can place your network administrator in charge of the telephone hardware and software or, for additional convenience, you can have an outside provider act as your VoIP PBX host. The provider supplies the VoIP phones and maintains all the necessary hardware at its secure site, making upgrades as they become necessary. This reduces your overall maintenance cost and lets you keep up with changes in phone technology at the same time.

Whether you host the system or not, you'll need to make sure your data network is reliable and capable of handling the extra traffic. Choosing a dealer with experience in installing VoIP PBX systems is key: the dealer you work with should perform detailed network analysis to ensure your system works perfectly from day one.

Find the best dealers with a free request for VoIP PBX price quotes: we'll match you to several dealers who can provide competitive bids.