Delivering Phone Systems for the Toronto Business Community

Dec. 19, 2011 - PRLog -- Delivering Phone Systems for the Toronto Business Community

Let’s start with the brief explanation about what the phone system is and what it can do for the organization.

Business phone system is defined as a communications tool that can help achieve communications through the multiple phone lines. It is different from your regular home telephone because it is accustomed to having several lines for the whole organization to route all internal and external calls. This function is important because it provides a money saving and a very reliable connection. Instead of using one line per one desktop telephone it can have multiple lines for many and many desktop phones in the organization. This feature allows saving lots of resources to the company by providing less expensive solution for the business communications. (For more information about the business communications please visit: http://www.smartip.ca). With that said it is important to mention that “business phone systems” have several names that are more likely to be used when describing business phone systems, here are key terms: "key systems", "hybrid systems", and "private branch exchanges". It is important to mention that those are not just the terms but also different types of systems with somewhat similar but different features and benefits.

Key Systems

A Key system was originally a Bell System term to explain a manually operated telephone switch, using the line-buttons on the phones to connect with the specific call.
Ordinary, key systems are described by their individual line selection key for each linked phone line (note: this feature is shared with the hybrid phone system). In present times the new installations of what is known as the "key" systems have become less common, as hybrid systems and private branch exchanges (PBXs) of the similar sizes now have the compatible costs and the greater functionality.
In addition, even though key systems are being less and less used it is vital to cite that they can be built using 3 key architectures: electromechanical shared-control, electronic shared-control, or independent keysets.

Hybrid Systems

An early electronic key system used a specifically dedicated telephone set that allowed the access to all linked PSTN lines and stations.
Now, the modern key system supports several different options: ISDN, SIP, analog handsets and many other features that are more traditionally created for the larger PBX systems. Their ability to support both the analog and the digital signaling, and some of the PBX functionality gave the rise to the "Hybrid" designation.

A hybrid system is called hybrid for its ability to have same call appearance buttons that primarily correspond to the individual lines and/or stations, however could also be used in supporting dialing to the outside lines or extensions without choosing a line appearance. (For more information about the business communications please visit: http://www.phonesystemsintoronto.com).

Private Branch Exchange (PBX)

A private branch exchange (PBX) is a telephone exchange system that is created, installed and maintained individually based for a particular business or office, as opposed to the one that is operated by the communications carrier/provider to operate for many multiple businesses or the general public. Here are several other names used to describe PBX:

PABX – private automatic branch exchange
EPABX – electronic private automatic branch exchange

PBXs are designed to make connections with the internal telephones of a private organization or business and also have a great ability to connect to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) via trunk lines. PBXs have an ability to have “extension” added to them. The extensions are usually referred to the ability to incorporate telephones, modems, fax machines, and other features to the end point on the branch.
PBXs are differentiated from the "key systems" because they automatically choose which outgoing line it needs to make or receive the call, while the “key system” requires the user to manually choose the outgoing lines using the key button switch. In addition, hybrid systems combine features of both the key and the PBX systems.
At the yearly stages of the PBXs it was rewarding because it was a significant solution to the cost savings when using telephone communications internally in the organization. Now, PBXs are capable of: handling the circuit switching decreasing the charges for the local phone service. In some time PBXs gained a lot of popularity and they started to offer services that were not available in the operator’s network. As an example, here are several services that were not available: hunt groups, call forwarding, and extension dialing. (For more information about the business communications please visit: http://www.meteortel.com).

It is now to the greatest advantage of every organization to use the latest and the most advanced communications technologies to solve communications challenges and achieve a better ROI.

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