The Best Phone Systems for Small Business Operations

The best phone systems for small business operations are generally those systems which offer lots of configuration flexibility (i.e. lots of useful features to choose from), but can be delivered as a simple solution.

Traditionally, phone systems for smaller businesses lacked the features available to larger businesses (which of course also had larger budgets). This was typically the case because system features were often tied to hardware components (for example voicemail was usually a completely separate machine), and smaller systems simply did not have enough computing power to provide more than a basic set of features.

The open source revolution in telecom, spearheaded by the Asterisk project—but complemented by many other projects such as FreePBX, OpenSIPS, FreeSwitch, Kamailio, and so forth—drove the cost of telecommunication systems down, and raised the bar on what sort of features could be delivered on a computer-based platform (as opposed to the old, proprietary hardware-based platforms). Suddenly, it was possible to download a complete PBX in software, for free, and get features that were unheard of in even the most expensive systems only a few years previous. These new open source PBXs rapidly gained popularity, as many felt they were the best phone systems for small business operations.

The challenge, unfortunately, was that these new innovations didn’t change the fact that the design and implementation of the system still required either a) an extensive skillset, or b) the time and curiousity needed to achive a result based on trial-and-error.

The best phone systems for small business operations are not so much based on hardware and software as they are based on the team that ensures their success.

Find out what happens when a rich set of features is combined with decades of experience in the design, implementation and support of business telecommunication systems. Your telecommunications challenges can be solved. We can help.

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What is a PBX system?

If one asks the question: What is a PBX System? One will typically get the answer: A Private Branch Exchange. What is more important of course is understanding what it does. The PBX emerged from a desire of businesses to reduce the cost of telephone services, coupled with a need for more control over how phone services worked in their business.

Prior to the PBX, every phone in an office required a separate circuit from the phone company (in exactly the same way as home telephone service is delivered)— one pair of wires from the Central Office to each and every desk that needed a phone. Since many (or perhaps most) of these phones would be unused most of the time, and since many (or perhaps most) calls happened between phones in the office, it became obvious that an office of, say, 100 people might only need a dozen or so lines to the outside world.

The PBX answered this need by connecting trunks from the Central Office into the premises, and then provided extensions to each desk. When a call was placed, the PBX would determine whether it was a desk-to-desk call, or an external call, and route accordingly.

For incoming calls, the PBX requires intelligence in order to determine what needs to happen to each telephone number as it arrives in the system. This is perhaps the most complex part of PBX design, however in essence what we are doing is answering the question “When somebody calls this number, what experience do we want them to have?”

The question of “What is a PBX System?” (now a hosted PBX system) sometimes also includes mention of the KTS, or Key Telephone System. These were generally used in smaller companies (a handful of lines and maybe a dozen phones). In a Key System, the incoming lines appeared on buttons on each phone (sometimes called lamps because each button had a light under it). Each phone could see each line. This obviously would not scale well as a phone can only have so many buttons on it. As electronics improved, Key Systems often provided some of the line pooling features of their bigger PBX siblings, and most of the larger, better quality PBXs are also able to emulate a small Key System (which might be useful for example in an executive assistant or departmental reception) by providing a Shared Line Appearance (SLA) feature.

So, what is a PBX system? Well, these days, it’s something far more than just a phone system from the past, and with new, standards-based and open-source platforms underpinning many PBX products, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible.

If you want to learn more, call 1-877-267-3835 for a free consultation (I’ll be happy to get on the call if you’d like), or check out our Hosted PBX Business Telephone Systems page.

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