Telephony has adopted a number of advancements as technology continues to evolve itself. One of these developments is the Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) which offers a solution for the requirement of a centralized telephone system. PBX is a telecommunications service that makes use of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
As the Internet started to become a primary place of business, PBX also introduced its new form called hosted PBX. This form of PBX is capable to deliver a call from a business through the internet. Typically, it is provided by the telephone company and it makes use of the equipment installed in the premises of the exchange of the telephone company. Meaning, there is no need for a company to purchase and install the necessary PBX equipment because the telephone company provides this service with a lease agreement. In some cases, the telephone company can also utilize the same switching equipment to provide service to multiple accounts of PBX hosting.
One main feature of the hosted PBX system is its capability to allow an entire company to be represented by a single phone number. It is not usually concerned with the geographical distribution. In fact, the company can even have the option to have no premises. With this, the workers from home can receive the same features with any PBX user through their domestic telephones.
The hosted PBX also allows multimodal access for employees to access the network through a number of telecommunication systems forms. These types of telecommunication systems include Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), cellular telephony, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). With a hosted PBX support, the business can have one extension to access either concurrently or sequentially multiple locations.
Another service of hosted PBX support is the integration with custom toll plans. Through this, it is possible to have intra company calls to be dialled at a lower rate. It also supports integrated accounting and billing.
In addition to that, hosted PBX solutions include elimination of the need of companies to manage the hardware maintenance. It also allows scalability so larger systems no longer need to adjust its size.