AskoziaPBX Open Source PBX System

AskoziaPBX is a complete PBX (Private Branch Exchange) on a small live CD that can be installed to your hard drive. It makes Asterisk, the number one open source PBX, install in minutes. Coupled with a little bit of telephony hardware or a SIP phone and a VOIP gateway account, you can have a complete phone system running in less than half an hour using AskoziaPBX.

IP PBX

For PBXs, IP telephony has crossed over from an emerging technology into the mainstream choice for business voice. The initial technical and operational challenges faced by IP PBXs are behind them, ROIs are proving the economics to be solid, and the productivity gains associated with the technology are and will continue to exceed those that could be realized with traditional telephony. User acceptance of IP telephony is high, with the sales of IP lines in the first half of 2007 solidly continuing to outpace those of traditional lines, as the move to IP telephony continues.

VoiceAxis PBX

VoiceAxis is multi-tenant PBX and VoIP management software designed to enable Service Providers and Enterprises to install and manage a large scale Asterisk implementation. The software controls a unique VoiceAxis Asterisk Cluster environment which utilizes Asterisk as the feature server or “SoftSwitch”. VoiceAxis works with both Asterisk Business Edition and the Asterisk Community Edition (asterisk.org), and leverages several other open source and commercially supported technologies.

PBX in a Flash

PBX in a Flash is the Lean, Mean Asterisk Machine designed to meet the needs of hobbyists as well as business users and VARs. You'll have a high-performance turnkey Asterisk PBX that's easy to upgrade with dozens of add on scripts to provide virtually any feature you can imagine. With PIAF you can choose from tons of Nerd Vittles and FreePBX applications that install in under 15 seconds: AsteriDex, Weather Reports, News Feeds, Email by Phone, Telephone Reminders, and many more. You add features when you need additional functionality. Otherwise, Just Say No to Bloatware!

Virtual PBX Provides Winning Service for New York International Spirits Competition

Posted on October 26, 2010 by C. Sensendorf

When you are hosting the world’s foremost spirits and wine competition, it is crucial to have a phone system that can back you up all the way. Luckily, Adam Levy, the host and founder of the New York International Spirits Competition (NYISC), was well prepared to recognize and award the best spirits and wines in the world.

Levy easily and efficiently ran the NYISC with the Virtual PBX® business-class phone system. Already familiar with the best, he knew VirtualPBX would be the perfect system to keep him in contact with a multitude of judges and vintners, and manage numerous calls from any location. In addition, receiving all the award submissions was no problem with the built-in faxing capabilities offered by VirtualPBX.

With Virtual PBX, Levy was able to significantly reduce overall costs and have access to vital features including follow-me calling and inbound fax. He estimates the new system saves the company around $980 a year on phone charges.

“After using Virtual PBX at a previous company, I knew that they offered a great service that would be easy for us to implement,” said Levy. “Today, our team relies on Virtual PBX to retrieve all of our voicemails and faxes, even when we are in completely different locations. In particular, we value the ease-of-use and varied feature set, which allows us to work out of our home offices and on-the-go when we’re at tasting events.”

The industry’s leading spirit experts are a huge part of NYISC’s overwhelming success. To compare and select the winning spirits, they had to be in constant contact with buyers, sommeliers, restaurant owners, distributers and importers. They never missed a call or fax as the virtual PBX system effortlessly routed the hundreds of entry forms as well as numerous calls to the appropriate line.

“A majority of our customers are on-the-go and require flexible resources to help them keep up with the needs of their clients, regardless of their location,” said Paul Hammond, president and CEO of Virtual PBX. “With the industry’s strongest set of features included in our standard plans, we give customers like the New York International Spirits Competition a cost-effective and powerful business phone system that delivers peace of mind.”

Our congratulations to Adam Levy and the New York International Spirits Competition. We’re proud to be involved with such a prestigious event!

Filed under: follow-me calling, general telephony, phone system

Virtual PBX Adds VoIP Phones and New Flat-Rate Plans!

  Virtual PBX Adds Hardware VoIP Phone Support

The time has come — Virtual PBX, provider of the no-compromise business phone system, announced support for hardware VoIP Phones along with new flat-rate plans, fortifying their lineup of industry-leading plans and services. With this, Virtual PBX now controls the phone call from the inbound phone number ALL the way down to the phone on the desktop. You can now have a truly complete phone system integrating phone numbers, free long distance and IP phones into one cost-effective solution.

We now offer two award winning plans from which you, the customer, can choose: the new flat-rate plans and the original usage-based plans. Even better, you don’t have to be on the flat-rate plans to use the VoIP phones – we’ve set up the system to support the phones on either plan. So feel free to pick the plan that works best for you and your business, and also decide how you would like the system to reach you. You can be contacted through the VoIP phone(s) and/or contact phone numbers via a landline or cell phone. The freedom to choose is in your hands.

We also offer you the freedom to save! With Virtual PBX you can simplify your life and your budget by cutting the ties with your landline carrier. There is really no need for a landline anymore seeing as how you can make and receive phone calls using a VoIP phone and your Virtual PBX service. So go on ahead and save that money each month with Virtual PBX Complete. With our phone service you can enjoy a savings of anywhere from 40-80% in traditional phone system and landline costs – that is a huge savings! Given that telecom costs are a major expense in everyday business, Virtual PBX provides business communication that is affordable, easy and accessible from wherever you need to be with a low monthly fee and no contracts or setup costs!

Please see the plan details below and save money with the plan suited for you:

Flat-Rate Plans:

These are your traditional “unlimited” plans that so many companies try to market. However, Virtual PBX does it right as there is a fair-use policy in place (much like every other VoIP phone service out there) that allows 5,000 minutes of inbound minutes per extension, aggregated at the account level. So a 5-user system would include upwards of 25,000 inbound local minutes. That’s amazing. Most companies won’t touch that. Yet, they can have this system for around $150 per month, and that already includes the e911 fees, Federal and FCC taxes. The flat-rate plans are as follows:

1-User: $39.99/mo4-User: $23.99/mo/ext10-User: $21.99/mo/ext20-User: $19.99/mo/ext50-User: $19.99/mo/extExtra Extensions: $24.99/mo

Usage-Based Plans:

These plans are what Virtual PBX used to pioneer the hosted phone service market. On these original plans you only pay for the minutes used each month. As the plans go up, you receive a larger block of free minutes and the price for additional minutes becomes cheaper. These plans come with unlimited users and all the same features as the flat-rate plans. Virtual PBX has the following usage-based plans:

VPBX-5: $9.99/mo (300 minutes, extra minutes are 6.5 cents/min)VPBX-10: $24.99/mo (600 minutes, extra minutes are 5.8 cents/min)VPBX-20: $44.99/mo (1,000 minutes, extra minutes are 4.7 cents/min)VPBX-50: $94.99/mo (2,500 minutes, extra minutes are 4.4 cents/min

VoIP Phones

Virtual PBX now supports hardware VoIP phones connected to the service. This is a superb addition as now you can make phone calls and show your Virtual PBX caller ID on every outbound call. And you don’t have to use a cellphone or landline to make that outbound call. All you need is an Internet connection. Virtual PBX sells the following phones that arrive pre-configured and ready for use:

Polycom SoundPoint IP 321: $99.99 (single ethernet port)Polycom SoundPoint IP 335: $139.99 (ethernet pass-through port; backlit display)Polycom SoundStation IP 5000: $599.99 (conference phone)

With Virtual PBX there is no need to get phones from one provider, calling plans from another, and features from somewhere else. Get it all in one place. If you are looking for a complete, no-compromise business VoIP solution for your business, Virtual PBX is the answer.

Filed under: ACD queue, auto-attendant, call recording, Call tracking, Call transfers, Call whisper, CallerID, conferencing, follow-me calling, hunt group, mail only extension, music on hold, phone system, virtual receptionist, VoIP Tagged: | caller id, extensions, features, hosted pbx, hosted phone system, IP PBX, IP phones, pbx, phone system, phones, Polycom, SIP VoIP, small business, small business phone system, virtual pbx, Virtual PBX Complete, virtual phone system, virtualpbx, VoIP phones

Hosted VoIP Phone Systems vs. TDM: Who Really Wins on Cost?

The cost savings of a hosted VoIP phone system often comes under scrutiny from some of the remaining providers of TDM, or “traditional”, phone systems. You know the kind, those broom closet phone boxes of yore. Through the use of a narrow lens, they push out misinformation that may lead small business owners to think that a TDM solution will somehow save them money over VoIP.

This is, however, an act of desperation on their part – not a reflection of reality. By choosing the scope of their argument, they can stack Apples v. Oranges and shine a deceptively attractive light on their systems. Zoom the camera out a bit, get the whole picture, and you’ll see why smart businesses have been abandoning TDM solutions in droves for the advantages of hosted VoIP.

The Classic TDM Cost Savings Argument

Let’s start with the argument for a TDM phone system. In a nutshell, these providers cite the benefit of their systems as being the fixed cost to own, e.g. pay for the PBX equipment and the installation, and it’s yours to own for life. They then compare that high fixed cost to a month-to-month hosted VoIP service like FreedomIQ over some extended period, say, 24 months, to say the TDM phone system carries a smaller price tag in the long run. Conversation over, right?

Not even close.

Where the TDM Argument Falls Apart

Hosted VoIP is a managed service, and much of the cost savings is abstract from the direct cost of equipment and ongoing service. Any savvy business owner knows that the price tag they should care about, the real price tag, is one that includes both direct and indirect costs to get the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). With that in mind, here’s what you’re not seeing with a direct business VoIP vs. TDM cost-of-service comparison:

1.  Deprecation of Hardware

TDM PBX equipment, like a car, loses value the minute you deploy it. The notion that you’re going to “own” your PBX isn’t exactly exciting if it doesn’t hold any value 6 – 12 months down the road and you’re back in the market. Worse still, if it breaks down while you “own” it, that means it’s your responsibility to pay to have it fixed or to buy a replacement. Even if you’re covered by a hardware warranty you’ve purchased, that cost needs to be a part of their big picture comparison.

With a hosted VoIP phone system, you’re not dropping capital into hardware that’s going to become obsolete. There’s no buying replacement parts for your wall switch and no risk that a year from now you’re going to be stuck with a 5-figure paperweight. Not to mention the fact that the equipment delivering your hosted service from remote is enterprise-grade and fully-redundant, something you’re not going to get from a comparable TDM solution.

2.  Scaling Up Your Business

TDM phone systems are notoriously inflexible to the growing needs of your business. With this kind of phone solution, you’re likely to fall into one of two camps: the over-paying, or the under-provisioning. That is, you either buy a PBX that is too big for you right now, thinking that you’ll eventually grow into it, or you buy a PBX that meets your short-term needs, understanding that you’ll have to figure something else out should your needs change. Result? You’re paying more than advertised, either right now for the privilege of future expansion, or down the road when the necessity to upgrade your PBX hits you like a ton of bricks.

Hosted VoIP phone systems are scalability machines. By taking your hardware off-premise and having phones interconnect and transmit calls via the Internet, you’re removing the limitation on what size of PBX you can have. You won’t need to overpay for more phones and capacity than you need or buy a brand new PBX within a year because your staff size has grown by 20%. With hosted VoIP, you can add phones to your system at any time and from anywhere with no extra costs to scale.

3.  Paying IT Staff / Maintenance

The coup de grâce. Owning your own TDM PBX again brings the responsibility of management, maintenance, and configuration in-house. That means some percentage of your IT staff budget is getting allocated to making sure your phones are always up-to-date and in working order. Even if you’re talking a tiny fraction (5%) of just one IT employee’s time, you’re talking about thousands of dollars each year to manage your own PBX.

Part of what you’re paying for with a hosted VoIP PBX is, essentially, the outsourcing of this responsibility. We maintain the equipment that provides you with service. We keep your phones updated to the latest firmware. We help you configure your service and troubleshoot your setup with free U.S. technical support. Meanwhile, your IT staff gets to focus on issues more critical to advancing your business, and the money you save (or make) by keeping them on task all but pays for your hosted VoIP phone system.

Be sure to do plenty of research and look at the big picture when considering what type of phone system is right for your business. Look beyond the price tag to what a system provides in flexibility and time saved, as those ultimately lead to keeping dollars in your pocket.