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past few years some of best developments have been in low cost intercom style systems for small businesses of typically 12 or fewer users. The biggest market sector in telecoms industry is undoubtedly that of small businesses who have 10 or fewer users. It now seems almost comical that this market was largely ignored in past. New KSU-Less systems allow even smallest offices to enjoy more advanced features that used to be only normally associated with larger more expensive systems. These systems are extremely cost effective and designed to make use of existing telecoms wiring.
The systems in this category that have benefited most from development investment are hybrid corded and cordless phone systems. These systems allow users to integrate cordless as well as corded phones within intercom systems. Office based employees would have corded phones whereas mobile employees such as warehouse operatives could have cordless phones.
Mini-PBX’s Mini PBX systems are ideally suited to companies who have more than 10 employees, but fewer than 100. Mini PBX’s can give access to features like voice mail, automated attendant, intercom, computer integration and call distribution.
There are 2 categories of mini-PBX phone systems, self contained devices and computer based phone systems. There are a few companies who make self contained systems. These systems are easy to install and require very minimal computer and networking knowledge. These systems provide basic features like voice mail, auto attendant, intercom and a few others. It must be stressed though that although these systems will suffice for most small business applications, they cannot always provide all specialist features each individual business may require. Mini-PBX’s that are computer based are generally speaking for more technically advanced users, and can offer a wider range of features that can be customised to meet a businesses requirements. A good example of advanced features is advanced IVR (auto-attendant) scripts. This allows computerised phone systems to route calls to specific groups based on how caller has responded to prompts. These computerised systems allow even small companies to handle their calls in a way normally associated with large call centres.
LAN (IP)-based phone systems Companies that have installed a high speed local area network (LAN) for connecting their computers can use this same network as backbone for their office phone system. Many phone system suppliers are edging towards this approach, and there are already several LAN-based phone systems which use a company’s Ethernet data network to transport phone calls and data.
LAN-based phone systems were a very experimental idea. They had unpredictable audio quality; neither did they offer features that users of conventional phone systems take for granted. This has all changed as phone system vendors have retooled business phone systems to use data networks as their backbone.
Jason Morris is co-author, search engine optimization and marketing consultant of Business Phone Systems Direct. Specialists in the supply and installation of business phone systems and accessories
