To bolster its offering for SMBs seeking cost-savings through a hosted Internet telephony service, a San Jose, California-based company this week
announced that it’s introducing native support for open-system VoIP peering.
Officials at
Virtual PBX say they’re giving customers an option of mixing and matching a VoIP network, softphone and handset, while offering VoIP’s cost-savings.
According to Paul Hammond, Virtual PBX’s (
News -
Alert) chief executive officer, conventional hosted PBX services send all calls over the standard phone network, whether to land lines, cell phones or even VoIP phones.
“Meanwhile, hosted IP-PBX suppliers usually require use of their own proprietary network, phones, adapters and softphone clients to send calls to VoIP phones,” said Hammond, pictured right. “Virtual PBX’s ability to marry a traditional hosted PBX with the delivery of calls over both PSTN and VoIP services brings an important new level of interoperability and cost savings to the telecommunications industry.”
Generally speaking, a hosted PBX service provides customers with advanced phone answering and call routing features without the expense of purchasing PBX hardware or the added costs of installation, ongoing maintenance and support. Virtual PBX says it was the first company to bring this service to market. Hosted PBX services have become popular among small businesses due to low upfront costs and high-end business features.
Here’s how Virtual PBX diagrams a feature of its service that directs calls when a person is unreachable at his or her desk:
As TMCnet has
reported, the head of one Manhattan-based company that offers hosted IP-PBX services said this tougher economy shines the light a little brighter on the technology’s cost-saving potential.
According to Rob Wolpov, president of
Junction Networks – whose flagship offering,
OnSIP, is a managed hosted PBX service for businesses that want an outsourced communications platform – companies now must be nimble, focused and ready to pounce on sales.
Having a staff or consulting contract to manage a phone system is costly and so is the office space needed to house the equipment and staff, Wolpov said.
“With a hosted IP-PBX system, companies can eliminate ongoing expenses related to managing and maintaining CPE,” Wolpov said. “But the real benefit comes from the inherent flexibility of a hosted service. Employees can work from home, allowing the business owner to explore office space reductions while employees save on commuting.”
The industry is hailing Virtual PBX’s VoIP peering capabilities.
For Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of
Enderle Group, Virtual PBX is making a market-leading move.
“Hosted PBX services are becoming ever more valuable because companies can get started with very low cash outlay,” Enderle said. “Adding VoIP interoperability can further reduce costs, improve service and provide the ‘make or break’ difference many small businesses need in today’s hard economic times.”
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Michael Dinan is a contributing editor for TMCnet, covering news in the IP communications, call center and customer relationship management industries. To read more of Michael’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by
Michael Dinan
