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Virtual PBX

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Here’s a little secret. We use the terms, Virtual PBX and Hosted PBX interchangeably. As far as we are concerned, they mean the same thing. However, virtual pbx is sometimes referred to in a way that does not apply to OnSIP Virtual PBX.

From your phone to our servers, our virtual pbx is a completely IP enabled service. OnSIP leverages leading IP phones from companies like Polycom, Linksys and others. With your pbx service from OnSIP, you can send and receive calls from sophisticated IP phones that resemble traditional, enterprise-grade desk phones. While the service is virtual, your user experience will be as if your pbx were sitting right down the hall in your telecom closet. And when you are using the service remotely, you will leverage the same sophisticated corporate phone and have the exact experience you have in your office!

Using the OnSIP virtual service, you can expect:

  • An equivalent experience to owning an enterprise grade pbx
  • Sophisticated desk phones with multiple lines, 3-way calling, speed dial, call hold, etc. as standard features of the service.
  • A completely IP enabled solution from end-to-end.

This is in sharp contrast to other virtual pbx services that leverage existing land lines. In this model, a virtual pbx service does all of the call routing but you use existing phone lines and cell phones as the user interface. Calls are forwarded around from traditional phone line to traditional phone line.

For instance, if you want to dial an extension, the extension is a proxy for an actual 10-digit phone number. This presents some complexities, which make this virtual service less like an enterprise-wide pbx service and more like silos strung together.

In this model you should be aware that:

  • You will have the additional cost of your traditional phone lines.
  • You can’t use some of the inherent features of sophisticated IP phones from Polycom, Linksys and other leading vendors.
  • Doing simple things like dialing extensions may require additional star codes.
  • 3-way calling, call hold, call transfer, speed dial, message waiting indication, etc. may not be possible or difficult to use.

Feel free to review our list of completely IP enabled features.

We often get asked to define "virtual phone number". Rob has a good blog post describing our take on what virtual phone number means.