Almost everyone has had some experience with a company’s Private Branch Exchange, or PBX for short. A PBX is a company’s gateway to doing business over the telephone, connecting incoming calls with their intended recipient. When you need to talk to someone in billing or from tech support, you end up calling a phone number and get directed to the department or individual you need. Alternatively, you might have been in one of those departments and had a call from a co-worker two offices away. Both of these scenarios occur on a company’s PBX. A totally automated system called an automated attendant directs callers to the department they are trying to find. A PBX helps to organize internal communication as well. By giving employees free phone access to their co-workers makes collaboration easier. This idea even includes other businesses as well. The conference calling function provided by a PBX lets people from multiple companies collaborate from many different locations. All of these, however, are features that can be costly upgrades from a basic PBX system.
In the past, PBXs were large, complex and hardware intensive. As time progressed the technology became much more accessible to small and medium sized enterprises. Now, with the advent of the Internet, PBX has gone online. This offers huge benefits for companies, specifically small and medium sized ones, who otherwise, would not be able to afford the advanced features that made communication easier. Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies that drive software like Skype, have reduced PBX systems physical presence and increased functionality. Hosted PBX is a new take on an age-old technology. Now PBX systems fit into current IT infrastructure and provides more functionality than ever before.
