What is Hosted IPPBX and how does it work
Here is short comparison of a conventional PBX phone system and an IPPBX system with EasyVoice Hosted IPPBX over VoIP (Voice over IP).
Conventional PBX Phone System
A PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is a physical telephone switching system that manages all incoming and outgoing 
calls for a company’s internal phone users. The small business PBX is a physical piece of hardware installed and maintained at the business location, and is connected to multiple incoming phone lines from the outside world, to automatically route incoming calls to specific extensions or users internally in the business’s office. A typical in-house business PBX system includes external and internal phone lines; a computer server or electronic console that manages all the call switching and routing. The PBX itself was can be very difficult to customize to the businesses specific needs, and any changes to extensions, additions, or feature upgrades requires a maintenance person from the phone company to come to the business and make any changes. This can be costly and very cumbersome.
EasyVoice Hosted IPPBX
A hosted IPPBX phone system delivers all of the PBX functionality as a service, off the premises of the business office, available over a dedicated internet connection using VOIP (Voice over IP) and all of the hardware and software of the system are housed in a secure Data center . This is commonly known today as “In the Cloud” Instead of buying all of the expensive PBX equipment and housing it in the business office, companies contract the IPPBX services from a hosted IPPBX service provider such as EasyVoice.
A hosted IPPBX can do everything that a traditional small business PBX can do and much, much more. It performs all the switching and connecting of all your voice lines. However, the big difference is that there is no physical hardware equipment (except for the IP phones) to buy and house at your office location. All of the functionality and features of your phone system are delivered over a secure Internet connection from your office location. Businesses can manage their own systems, without having to wait and pay for a maintenance person. You can use IP phones, and also connect your mobile devices to your IPPBX and have your phone service become mobile and travel with you wherever you go anywhere in the world.
With an IPPBX system, you can connect employees in your main office, satellite offices, and teleworkers working from home offices, from anywhere in the world all on the same system using the same extension setup and the same local Company number.
As with premise-based PBX systems, all of the key functions that are provided with a premise based PBX system can be provided by a hosted IPPBX, some of these include:
- Present a single business number that gives access to all company employees and departments
- Answer calls with a custom business greeting ( Automated Attendant)
- Offer a menu of options for directing the call, such as connecting to a specific extension or to a department anywhere in the world.
- Play music or custom messages whenever callers are waiting on hold
- Take voice messages for any employee extension, for a department, or for the company in general
- Conference multiple incoming calls with employee extensions
And a host of other features.
One of the main functions of a premises based PBX system is sharing the incoming voice lines among multiple users/extensions within the company. Premise based PBX systems typically have a smaller number of incoming lines than user extensions. When call volume is high, these PBX systems can ring busy. This creates the problem of not having enough inbound line resources to service all the users.
This is not the case with the IPPBX system. With hosted IPPBX each user has their own dedicated voice connection to the outside world. The hosted IPPBX system has the ability to handle far more capacity than the traditional premise based PBX systems, and also grow and scale easily as the company’s needs change. Quite often premise PBX buyers buy a smaller system to start with, and then find that it is very difficult to grow the system as the company grows. With the EasyVoice Hosted IPPBX system, there is basically no capital outlay for hosted PBX services, and extensions/user can be very easily added (or deleted) as needs change.
