How Do I Pick a Good IP PBX Phone System Vendor?

Moving to an IP PBX phone system can be a great decision that can save money, offer easier administration, and give you access to many high-end features at little or no incremental cost. But before making the switch, it's important to find a good IP PBX phone system vendor that can help you with your decision-making process, make the installation transparent, and provide training to your users.

Step One: Your Needs Analysis

Different vendors may have different specialties. While some focus more on enterprise installations, others may be more focused on small businesses, and so it is important to determine precisely what you're looking for before you start looking for a vendor. This requires first, determining how many phone lines you need, how many users you are likely to have in the foreseeable future, and what your peak usage is.

To determine peak usage, track how many users are on the phone at any given time throughout the day. This will be important later in determining whether you have adequate bandwidth to support your IP PBX.

VOIP PBX Systems For Beginners

Step Two: Hosted, Software, or Hardware?

You don't need to make the decision between hosted or on-premises, or virtual or hardware right away, but it's important to at least know the relative advantages of each. A hosted system does not reside on-site, and does not require on-site maintenance, and it may be very good for smaller installations.

An on-premises software-based IP PBX is a type of "virtual" IP PBX, offering the advantage of on-premises control and less cost than a hardware-based PBX. Lastly, the hardware IP PBX may require the most maintenance, but it also affords the greatest amount of control over features and deployment.

Step Three: Your RFP

If you are a small business with only five or ten phone lines, you may think you don't need a formal Request for Proposal, but it will help to illustrate to potential vendors exactly what they need to provide for you, and what your expectations are.

Step Four: Create a short list

Take some time to review the web sites of system vendors, and have a look at any existing review sites on the Web. Compile a list of vendors that are likely to have the products and service to meet your needs.

In Need of a PABX System

Step Five: Evaluate the offerings

When you evaluate your list of vendors, there are several things to keep in mind besides the feature set. The feature set itself is important, but it is not everything-and the phone with the most features doesn't always win the competition. All those bells and whistles are impressive, but your decision should be based on the features that you need now, or will need in the foreseeable future. In addition, your decision should take into account scalability and the ability to upgrade to a higher-end system should the need arise.

Don't forget about the IP phones!

Besides the IP PBX, you will need IP phones as well, and it will be most convenient if you can obtain these from the same vendor that is providing you with and installing your IP PBX. Many IP phones do come with high-end, special features, and when selecting an IP PBX, one must also make sure to have IP phones that are able to handle the features offered by the PBX.

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Find Best PBX System

Installing business phone systems is great option. Not only does it save you time and money in the office, but also prevents you from losing out on potential business, even when you are away. One such office phone system is the PABX system, which stands for Private Automatic Branch Exchange.

PBX

PBX is an acronym for Private Branch Exchange and it stands for a telephone exchange that is used in business or the office as opposed to one that is used as a common carrier or telephone company that operates for many businesses or for the general public.

PBX is also referred to as PABX-Private Automatic Branch Exchange and EPABX-Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange.

PBXs are used to make connections amongst the internal telephones of a private organisation, which are usually business oriented. They are also connected to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) through trunk lines. As they incorporate telephones, modems, fax machines, and many more parts, the general term "extensions" that is given is referred to the end point on the branch.

PBXs are differentiated from the key systems in which the users of the key system manually select the outgoing lines, whereas the PABX phone system selects it automatically.

There are some hybrid systems that combine both the features. In the beginning, the main advantage of PBXs was the cost saved on internal phone calls, handling the circuit switching and thus locally reduced charges for the local phone service.

Over the time, as PBXs increased in their popularity, it started offering many more services than the operator network, like call forwarding, extension dialling and hunt groups. In the early 1960s, there was a simulated PBX known as Centrex, which provided many similar features as the central telephone exchange.

How it all began

There were two significant developments during the 1990s and it led to new types of PBX systems. One of the developments was the immense growth of the data network and the increased understanding in the public about packet switching.

Companies needed packet switched networks for data and to use them for public telephones was very tempting and with the global availability of the Internet, the system made packet switched communication became even more attractive.

These factors then lead to the development of the VoIP Phone System, which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. Another development that leads to the hosted PBXs was that most companies realised that they did not have the core competence to handle the telephony of their companies and they required it to be done by someone else.

Thus, in a hosted PBX setup, the PBX is situated and managed by a telephone provider and the features and calls are delivered through the Internet. The customer has to just sign up instead of buying the hardware. But today there are many companies that are setting up their own PBX systems, which are available with companies like ITT Communications.

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