Whether you run a startup or an established small business, you need a phone for people to reach you. If you have more than one or two employees, you will likely need a phone system of some kind. This phone system will route calls within the company and enable collaboration between the customers and employees. At a very minimum, you need to transfer or hold calls within the organization and check voicemail. In practical terms – most companies require a phone switch to communicate. This phone services for small business is referred to as a private branch exchange (PBX).
Traditional PBX
Today there aren’t many physical telephone systems that use landlines or traditional copper phone lines still left in operation. A conventional PBX acted as a switch connecting phone wires within each business location. This switch connects lines from the phone company with an internal phone network. A classic PBX setup presumed physical hardware installed on-premises. Installation and maintenance of such hardware required a skilled phone technician who, of course, did not work for free. Even in the case of small businesses, traditional PBXes typically require high upfront costs and at least modest ongoing maintenance.
IP PBX
The current generation of telephone switches works over the Internet protocol. IP PBX runs over voice over Internet Protocol [VoIP] to transmit the calls over the different computer networks. There is practically no distinction today between a phone and computer network since all the modern-day IP phones are computers disguised to look like phone handsets. These computers can handle many new telephony features such as video calling, access to email, and other Internet services. Some phones even feature full Internet browsers.
While IP PBX provides much of the same switching functionality as traditional PBX, its inner workings are quite different. IP PBX uses packet switching as opposed to quickly vanishing circuit switching technology. Yes, VoIP carriers still connect IP-based phone systems to the old public switched telephone network; however, voice and video telephony these days rely on the Internet and SIP trunks. IP PBX systems are less expensive to operate, and they extend the feature set of traditional phone systems into varying phone applications. Such applications are call recording, visual voicemail, video conferencing, etc.
The best part of opting for an IP PBX system is that it costs less to operate and deploy because it uses pre-existing computer network wiring or even Wi-Fi. All the connections of an IP PBX system are Internet-based. Thus, IP PBX can be managed and upgraded remotely. With no hardware or circuits to add, packet-switched PBX systems are easy to access and maintain.
Hosted PBX
If you don’t want to have anything to do with managing your IP PBX, you can subscribe to a hosted PBX solution. A hosted PBX is an IP PBX system hosted and maintained offsite. Typically, this is a service of a business VoIP provider. Hosted VoIP PBX offers all the PBX features without the maintenance hassles. Since hosted PBX is offsite, there is no need for PBX hardware in-house. All the technology maintenance, repair work, and upgrades are taken care of by a VoIP service provider.
Virtual PBX
A virtual PBX is another form of a cloud-based hosted PBX designed for a smaller business. It is typically quickest to deploy and easiest to operate. While it does not always have a complete feature set of the full hosted PBX, such as call analytics and advanced reporting, it provides an affordable unified communications option for many small businesses.
