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Open Source Software can help your business in more ways then you think. Another great application of OSS is to us it as a PBX. PXB stands for Private Branch Exchange, a product that most of us are familiar with at work: In basics it is a phone system that will allow users to hold and transfer calls.

Over the years, PBX systems have involved into multi-technology communications centers, allowing for much more then the described basic functionality. However, with this functionality comes a price tag, especially when going for a full VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) PBX such as Cisco Callmanager or Avaya.

In contrary to popular belief, VoIP is not only used for Internet telephony. VoIP is a generic name for any technology that allows voice conversations to take place over network connections. So, what is the difference?

The Internet is notorious for being 'unmanaged'. Any information that passes over the Internet, secured or not, is routed over publicly accessible devices, called routers. These routers treat every package they receive equally. The issue with this is that the human ear notices every delay during a conversation, so packets over the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be delivered without delays.

Even though there are technologies to circumvent this equality, all devices from sender to receiver need to support AND allow this unequal treatment. Since this is not the case and most likely never will, using VoIP over the Internet will work reliable for mainly home and inter-office use. This is not to say that certain destinations on certain VoIP providers offer excellent quality for a fraction of the price, which may make them a great alternative to higher prices telcos.

The good part about VoIP is that you DO control your local network and that the speeds of the average local area network (LAN) are far greater then the average speeds of Internet connections.

When setting up a VoIP PBX, the need for separate phone cabling at every workspace is eliminated. Instead, all communications go over standardized network cables. Also, any VoIP device that supports SIP can be added to this system, so there is no longer a dependency on the PBX vendor to deliver -often overpriced- hardware and additional licenses.

When going for an open source PBX solution, there are no licenses for the number of users you want to connect and often the functionality of an open source PBX system is greater then proprietary ones.

One example of a great open source PBX system, is the Asterisk PBX.

Asterisk runs on any flavor of Linux that is available and comes with great built-in features such as IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menus, voicemail, calling groups, meeting rooms and much more. Through the open source community, many great add-on tools and packages have become available for easy management and maintenance.

Asterisk will run an standard PC hardware so in small environments, even slower 1Ghz machines can be used to run a fully functional PBX server.

The advantage to all of this is that if an organization outgrows the current system, it is easy to either move the system to newer and more capable hardware or to move to a different VoIP system all together: The old server hardware can be re-used as a regular file or print server, while the SIP devices (phones) can be re-used with the new server system!

With this setup, you can also have faxes and voice mails received and distributed to email addresses, so you can check your messages by reading your email. Obviously, this is besides the possibility of checking messages directly from your phone.

Hunt groups will allow people to call one number and let your PBX hunt you down at a previously specified list of numbers: It will try to find a user at their desk, their cell, their home-office, etcetera.

The price for this functionality is amazingly low: Any standard PC hardware will do, maybe even existing hardware. In this case too, you may want to consider redundancy and backups, but when a system like this dies, it can be rebuilt from scratch in about 45 minutes. The freedom you have when choosing SIP devices (phones), allows for the use of phones ranging from USD 45 to USD 1000 each.

If you want to connect regular telco lines, you will need to purchase an interface card to do this. When buying this hardware, consider buying it from a company called Digium. This company is responsible for the development of the Asterisk PBX and funds this out of the sales of their Asterisk-centric hardware.

Bringing VoIP and/or the Asterisk PBX into your organisation, will do wonders to your bottom line and will bring great savings to your organization.