IP | PBX | Key | VoIP Telephone Systems 

Despite the state of the economy, 2010 posted some nice growth in PBX sales. Studies performed by The Eastern Management Group show Cisco as the clear leader in this space here and here.

Cisco, Avaya, and Panasonic led the world in PBX sales, while Cisco, Avaya, and NEC led in North America according to Eastern. 

1. Cisco - 35%
   
2. Avaya - 23%
3. NEC - 8%
4. Mitel - 7%
5. Panasonic - 4%

These reports indicate that Cisco acheived 35% of marekt share in US. Productivity improvement was the leading driver for purchase as cited by IT managers surveyed. 

I'm interested to see the numbers for 2011.

You'll probably come across these terms when shopping for a new phone system, whether it's a VoIP phone system or a traditional TDM PBX or Key System. FXS and FXO are two of the most common ports  found  on a phone system. 

FXS stands for Foreign Exchange Station. FXO stands for Foreign Exchange Office. In simple terms, the FXS represents Stations on the phone system, whether fax machines, telephones, or other analog devices. 

FXO is Outside of the phone system and on the phone company's central Office side. FXOs connect the phone system to the public switched telephone network. If you have analog POTS lines, you use an FXO card to connect to the PSTN.

FXO provides the on hook/off hook loop closure indication. FXS provides dial-tone, battery current, and ring voltage to a station on the phone system. 

Automated-Attendant is a technology that automates interactions with telephone callers. It allows callers to be automatically transferred to an extension without the manual intervention from a receptionist or telephone operator.

Auto-attendant performs virtually limitless call routing, including directories, transfer-off-premises, pager notification, etc. The outgoing messages and routing tables can change, based on the day and time as set in programming. Auto-attendant typically contains flexible options for day, night, holiday, and auto modes. 

 The purpose for using auto-attendant is to provide service to your customers. Your auto-attendant options should route the caller to the employee or department that can meet their needs in shortest aomunt of time and the fewest transfers. You may choose to handle all incoming calls with auto-attendant; or to live-answer calls with the auto-attendant set to handle overflow calls during busy time; or to use auto-attendant only for after-hours calls.   

With a little thought and planning, you can be sure that calls will be answered or messages will be left with the right department best suited to quickly meet your callers' needs.

A PBX is a type of phone system. PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange. It connects the internal telephones within a business to each other, and also connects them to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) outside of the business. 

A PBX is used to efficiently share resources of many different phone numbers and many phone lines within a business. A PBX is typically used in larger environments where employees are located in separate offices. Most telephones in the PBX system have a single, unique per-phone extension number. A receptionist at an attendant console or an automated-attendant receives all incoming calls, which are transferred to the requested extension number.

A PBX will usually connect to the PSTN with PRI and DID numbers. A PRI is essentially one wire that is capable of carrying up to 23 phone calls at one time. DID is an acronym for direct-inward-dialing. DID is a service offered by the telephone company. 

DIDs are purchased in a block of phone numbers and associated with one or more phone lines. DIDs are used to assign a dedicated phone number to each employee, without requiring the purchase of a separate phone line for each employee. In doing this, telephone traffic can be split up and managed more easily.

POTS is an acronym for Plain Old Telephone Service. POTS, also known as analog phone lines, are individual phone lines that can be used by a business. They are delivered over twisted copper pairs by the phone local company.

With POTS, each business line has its own individual phone number associated with it. POTS can be connected directly to an individual phone handset, KSU-less phone system, Key system, or PBX. If you have a small business, and only need to have a maximum of 8-10 people on the phone at any given time, you probably have POTS lines.

PRI is an acronym for Primary Rate Interface. A PRI is essentially one wire that provides 24 channels, and is capable of carrying up to 23 concurrent phone calls. 

PRI service may also be referred to as T1 PRI or ISDN PRI, though they are different. The difference between a T1 and PRI in voice lines is that the PRI protocol establishes one channel of the 24 channels as a switching and data channel.  

In techie terms, a PRI consists of 23 B-channels and one D-channel. The D-channel is used for signaling and providing services like caller-ID. The B-channels are used for your phone calls. A PRI uses the D-channel for signal, while a T1 doesn’t. So a T1 will support 24 calls at once, while a PRI will support 23. 

When you buy a PRI, you also buy a block of DID numbers. The DID numbers may ring the as a dedicated number for the primary phone number of the business, or direct extensions for employees, departments, or fax machines. 

In most situations, PRI is the service that's actually deployed and used by businesses. If your business requires more than 8-10 people to be on the phone at any given time, then you need to look at a PRI.  

If you review the cost of POTS lines versus that of PRI, you’ll find that there’s price break around 8-12 POTS lines. POTS lines bill for around $40 per month with the extra fees the phone company charges. Do the math and find that 10 POTS lines run $400 per month. A PRI may bill somewhere near $400-500 per month, and it offers many benefits over POTS.

Why would a growing business hang onto POTS lines, even though they could pay less with a PRI?

• they don’t have a person on staff to maintain their phone system and manage their communications expenses;
  
• they're not aware of how the current service compares with other options that may be available; 
  
• they are feel like they're not getting the best service and pricing but don't know where to get started;
  
• the current phone system may not support a PRI. 

If your business has grown over the years and you’re interested in reviewing your options, give me a call. I can help you get started.