Rent IP-PBX model VPBX, or how to organize a modern telephone service in the office
Hello! Today we would like to talk about the possibilities of office IP-telephony and how to organize it.
In the understanding of many modern companies, there are two standard ways of organizing office IP-telephony: this is either installing your own office IP-PBX, or using the wide functionality of the “Virtual Office”.
On the pages of Habrahabr there were several materials telling about the possibilities of organizing office IP-telephony based on Asterisk, configuration files were described in detail. Numerous solutions of the Virtual Office were also presented. Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages (if the community is interested, we can put it in a separate material with a comparative analysis).
But very often there are situations when a company cannot afford, as a rule for financial reasons, the installation and maintenance of its own IP-PBX - the average budget for such an implementation will be from 30,000 rubles. with equipment, but at the same time the functionality of the Virtual Office is clearly not enough. Based on this practice, our company was one of the first among telecom operators to offer a compromise solution to the market - rent an office IP-PBX using the VPBX model with already connected phone numbers. What is the solution?
The VPBX (Virtual PBX) model implies the deployment of many virtual machines with installed software IP-PBX distributions, for example, based on Asterisk. All virtual machines are located in the data center of the telecom operator, are connected to transit VoIP servers within the same physical network in order to reduce data transmission losses and are configured to work for receiving / making calls (numbering capacity is allocated in the code 495 or 499).
In fact, we have the same IP-PBX as in the office, only physically removed from the office. VPBX capabilities allow you to configure it in accordance with the personal tasks of each company, organize the connection of remote offices to a single network, establish your own call distribution routes, store telephone recordings, modify the platform for your specific business processes and many other features that are not available under " Virtual Office. ”
The main consumers of VPBX are companies that have already "grown" from the "Virtual Office", but cannot afford to maintain their own IP-PBX. As a rule, these are companies of 5-20 people who need a personal approach to setting up office telephony.
Benefits of the VPBX Model
• No cost to purchase the IP-PBX itself - we purchase all servers for virtual machines independently and at our own expense,
• VPBX installs, configures and maintains our technical department - payment is included in the monthly fee,
• IP-PBX personal settings - the client himself selects the internal numbering plan, the order of landing calls, individual route maps for different incoming numbers and schedule modes,
• Independence of the location of the subscriber - you can connect both from the office and from any other places where there is Internet,
• When moving, all settings are saved,
• Help in setting up remote client equipment, leaving the office if necessary,
• Remote monitoring of operability and prompt resolution of problems in case of any malfunctions;
• Possibility of building secure telephone networks using VPN tunnels; confidentiality of data transmission between internal numbers;
• Ensuring and monitoring security - timely software updates on the platform;
• Isolation and connection of own numbering capacity (495) or (499), organization of outgoing trunks - full control of call quality throughout the entire route chain,
• First-person work - we are we are a communications operator, not a traffic aggregator or an “owner” of the Virtual Office platform,
• If your office has disconnected Internet or electricity, VPBX will continue to receive calls, will include a voice greeting and automatically forward calls to employees' mobile phones in automatic mode - you get a backup communication channel compared to IP-PBX in the office.
Disadvantages of the VPBX Model
Among the drawbacks of the solution, one can note: the possibility of disconnecting the communication channel in the data center (for example, damage to the city collector) or other other force majeure circumstances, the occurrence of which is probably no higher than in the company’s office. A prerequisite is the availability of a fairly stable and wide Internet access channel in the client’s office - otherwise the quality of the conversation will not be as high as it could be. In addition, there are more cases when many unscrupulous providers block the passage of SIP traffic on their networks. But this is a topic for a separate article on how to deal with this.
Technical implementation
If we talk about the technical side of the issue, then on virtual machines we install the FreePBX distribution with our own modifications to the call distribution module, API and other unique features that you, as a rule, cannot get in the framework of the Virtual Office. For example, one of our customers, owners of an online store with remote operators (about 10 people working at home) needed control over each operator and dynamic call distribution depending on the operator’s occupancy - so that the load on answering calls was evenly distributed between operators . This module has been added and implemented for all our customers and on other VPBX for free. Often our customers are generators of improvements, which we are happy to implement for them.
Our VPBX allows you to integrate with various business systems of the company. For example, through the API, we have the ability to send information about incoming calls in XML format to any CRM, where the call will be recorded and processed by the employee. Through Callback we can make calls from CRM through the click-do-dial mechanism. One example of such a project is the full integration of all VPBX features with SugarCRM - the project was implemented with an integrator and developer of this CRM in Russia (by the way, access to this solution can be obtained using the SaaS model).
Yes, this approach to work requires constant interaction with the client, you must be aware of all changes. In this regard, for each client we assign a personal technical specialist who will be able to restore the whole picture of your telephone network in the shortest possible time and make the necessary adjustments to the work of VPBX. All infrastructure information is documented and implemented in flowcharts.
Summing up, it can be noted that if your company wants to get unique opportunities for personalizing telephone services to ensure continuous growth and development of the business, you should pay attention to modern models of such services. If at some point you decide that you have "grown" before installing your own IP-PBX, we can transfer the system image to your server within a few hours, minimizing the time it takes to deploy an office telephone network.
We will be happy to answer all your questions in the comments.