Inbound PBX Software
PBX stands for Private Automatic Branch Exchange. It is a telecommunications system that is now commonly linked with the growing VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) systems.
As the Information revolution rolls on, people want more from their phones and PCs. They see the business world growing and want to grow with it. Outsourced Call centers are now widely accepted for modern business, and many small and medium sized companies are looking for ways to size the moment. PBX offers one solution.
PBX began life as the private phone system, used by a company for the employees to talk to each other, and bypass the system used by the rest of the world. There could be only a few outside lines to the real world, but PBX let them talk “in-house.” But as software has come on stream to allow people to do so much more, they can now be part of the Internet and cell phones. The system has now expanded to let employees work from home or anywhere the wireless system lets them.
Now the system can provide a service so wide, a small or medium sized company can have at its fingertips the same level of applications, only once dreamt of in big business. Voicemail, Unified Messaging, CTI (PC integration), softphones, telecommuters, branch office support, call queuing, Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), Auto Attendant (IVR), and Unified Messaging. All are now available, thanks to the growing PBX business packages.
Many of these systems have only come about, due to the advent of digital phones, and the changing of the whole communications network, to a digital outlook. The old analogue phone system could never cope with the complexity and quality needed to send signals right across the world, as if they were in the same town. To this end, call protocols have been aligned to meet the standards. Currently Session Initiation protocol (SIP) is the most popular.
The living embodiment of the PBX system in a software form is an application called: Asterisk. Written by Mark Spencer of Gigium, this allows call centers to bring all their systems together to form a service. This will in time, form itself in a type of Operating system for call centers. The same way Unix and Windows have for the Internet.