Almost all businesses use a PBX (Private Branch Exchange) as a local phone system to receive and place calls. A PBX provides business oriented features that your local phone company cannot offer.
An IP-PBX is just a PBX that uses VoIP (Voice over IP) technologies as a way to transport the voice and signaling used to get phone calls from once place to another.
The ability to offer features like letting your business callers reach you on your cell phone even when you’re out of the office is one feature only an IP-PBX typically can offer.
Most older phone systems cannot offer find me/follow me, personalized call screening and presence detection.
Two of the most common claimed advantages of VoIP is that it’s free and you don’t need additional wiring for your phones. We all know that nothing is free. And you might be able to use your current network wiring for your phones.
The only way to truly know that you can use VoIP on your existing network is to analyze your network traffic utilization. This is best done by someone that understands VoIP and how it would impact your network. You will first need to know the number of concurrent phones that will be talking on your network.
The prioritization of VoIP traffic in order to make sure it is delivered reliably is sometimes an obstacle due to older network equipment like switches and routers that don’t know what VoIP traffic is. This and total bandwidth utilization is an important step in predetermining that VoIP can be used in your network.
You must also consider the number of network devices in any network path used to carry voice traffic as each device will add some small delay. To maintain minimal delays in VoIP traffic, sometimes your network may need to be reorganized.
While it is important to always check the number of devices that may be used in between extensions, it is normally not a big problem. A quick review can often remove any large concerns.
Can you use your existing network data connections for your voice traffic? Sometimes. If your business does a lot of heavy movement of data, such as downloads or uploads to or from the Internet or moving or printing large files, then you might want to consider either using a separate LAN or using your legacy telephone wiring as the other LAN for your voice traffic.
Using your older phone system cabling for your VoIP network is an option and should work fine as long as you change the connectors from the typical RJ11 to RJ45 and the cabling is Cat 5 or better.
Luckily, almost all VoIP phone system resellers understand VoIP issues very well. They can usually take a look at your network wiring and equipment and tell you whether any changes might be required. Don’t be afraid to ask them to perform an evaluation of your premises prior to talking about cost.
Want to find out more about IP-PBX, then visit Telegato to see how to choose the best VoIP Products for your needs.
