What exactly is IP PBX?

1. What exactly is IP PBX? Also identified as an IP PBX, Unified Communications System or commercial phone system, a PBX acts as the primary switching system for phone calls within a company. PBX systems handle in-house traffic between stations plus act as the gatekeeper to the external world. The initials PBX stand for Private Branch Exchange, a pretty old-fashioned term for a system that has advanced considerably over the past century. Traditional PBX A traditional PBX is made up of two key components: lines and stations. The lines, sometimes known as trunks, are connections to the global public switched telephone network (PSTN) by way of a telephone business. Stations are simply telephones or other endpoint gadgets like fax machines, modems and credit card terminals.

2. Original Mission The original mission of the PBX was to offer shared access to limited possessions. Rather than having a separate phone line for every phone, a business could share a small pool of lines through a much larger pool of stations. When a call came, it was answered by a representative who then connected it with the apt person or department. When somebody inside needed to make a call, the agent connected them with an available line. Often these early systems were simply called “switchboards.” Modern Day IP PBX Over time, operators were substituted by electromechanical and later electronic systems for handling access to lines. Additional features were added to automatically direct incoming calls, to permit active calls to be transmitted between stations and to allow or deny calls centered on various rules. And in today’s time, A VoIP Phone System / IP PBX system comprises one or more SIP phones / VoIP phones, an IP PBX server plus optionally consists of a VoIP Gateway. The IP PBX server is somewhat similar to a proxy server. SIP clients, being either softphones or hardware oriented phones, register with the IP PBX server, and whenever they wish to make a call, they request the IP PBX to institute the connection. The IP PBX has got a directory of all phones/users along with their corresponding SIP address and therefore can connect an internal call or route a peripheral call via either a VoIP gateway or a VoIP service source to the chosen destination. Most of the companies have got the IP PBX at the center and beginning from the bottom, they see the corporate network. This is the business’s local network. Through that network, systems running SIP clients connect straight away to the PBX.