PBX | PABX | EPABX

PBX for hotels from Matrix Telecom

Uttam Pegu — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:43:40 +0000

Matrix Telecom, an well-known PBX brand in India, has a range of PBX system specially designed for hospitality industries. It has hotel EPABX starting from 16 lines to 516 lines. The models like ETERNITY ME16S, ETERNITY ME10S, ETERNITY GE12S etc. are feature rich as well as suits any kind of modern hotel and many hotel specific features.

Most probably, Matrix Telecom Solution is the only PABX manufacturer in India which manufacture PBX range exclusively for hospitality industry. Many other PBX manufacturer in India provide hotel functionality in the form of additional module in the same general purpose PABX machine.

Few of the interesting and hotel specific features of Matrix Hospitality EPABXs are :-

1. Back Ground Music / Ringback tone

This is an interesting feature which allows external audio source like CD player etc. be connected. t becomes hold-music as well as caller ring back tone when a music is being played.

2. Emergency Call Detection and Reporting

Emergency calls like Police, Fire etc. are automatically detected and reported. It has also option for starting a hooter during such emergency thereby alerting everyone in the hotel.

3. Floor Service Destination(s)

This is another useful and interesting feature of Matrix Hotel EPABX which is very useful in a multi-storied hotel. It allows calls by rooms to land on the ‘room service’ number on the same floor.

4. GSM, VoIP and T1/E1 Connectivity

These facilities offer value added service to guests in a hotel where they may get benefits of least cost routing for making both mobile calls as well as international calls.

5. Voice Guidance on Tones

This is unique features built into Matrix Hotel PBXes. This feature is like IVR which can guide guests with recorded voice. For example, if any guest dial room service and room service number is busy, then it can play a message like, this number is busy, please press 1 if you want this number to call you back!

Apart from these features, it also has all the hotel specific features in it. Matrix Hospitality PBX are quite popular in India and they have large installations. Hotels which are looking for EPABX specially suitable for their hotels, Matrix Hospitality PBX systems are good choice!

PABX feature : Call Whispering

Uttam Pegu — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:43:24 +0000

What is Call Whisper ?

Call whisper, also known as call screening, is an advanced PBX feature for incoming calls which allows called party to know in voice which number caller has dialed. During ringing and before call s established, called party is “whispered” or informed in voice about the caller as well as what number the caller has dialed.
After hearing these information, the called party can either accept the call, or reject the call, or transfer the call to any other extension.

In a scenario, where call is routed to a single extension from different phone numbers, this feature is very useful. It allows the called party to know, which number the calling party has dialed, since every number may correspond to different department of the organisation or any other specific type of calls. The dialed number identification help the called party greet the calling party accordingly.

This call whispering can be a built in feature in PABX or this can also be implemented using CTI software. Many advanced PABX comes with Call Whisper or Call screening feature. Matrix Solution, a premium PBX manufacturer in India, offers this feature in their hotel PBX models like ETERNITY GE12S.

Call Whisper is also useful in measuring effectiveness of advertising where one receptionist or extension is receives calls from different brands from different numbers, but terminated in single telephone extension.

The message which is played for the called party in Call Whisper feature can be customised and recorded using telephones. When using Call whisper, there can be many intelligent conditions and message playing as well as call routing.

Call whisper also offers the called party a facility to reject an incoming call and then to transfer the call to voice mail number. This kind of facility will allow receptionist to sort and attend more calls as per urgency of the incoming calls.

Call whispering feature is desired in a PABX where optimisation of manpower usage as well as informed customer care is required. So, it is recommended that while buying an high-end PABX, one should buy a PBX with call whispering feature.

PBX jargons

Uttam Pegu — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:20:16 +0000

There are many words which are specific to PBX or PABX, or widely used in PABX industry. I thought I would try to list them :

1. PABX, PBX, EPABX
2. ISDN
3. PRI
4. Line card
5. Power supply
6. Number of ports
7. number of lines
8. trunk
9. network
10. master
11. slave
12. clock
13. trace
14. call trace
15. log
16. CDR
17. ACD
18. SS7
19. Analog
20. POTS
21. exchange
22. Telephone
23. Intercom
24. R2MF
25. MDF
26. TRUNK
27. Junction Box
28. PCM
29. E1
30. T1

To be updated !

IRIS IVDX : Coral Telecom Product

Uttam Pegu — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:54:17 +0000

IRIS IVDX is a very interesting telephone exchange from Coral Telecom Ltd., an Indian telephone exchange manufacturer. It is one of its kind as it can handle voice, data and video all simultaneously. With increasing demand in data exchange over telephone, where even voice is now

IRIS IVDX PABX from Coral Telecom

exchanged in nearly real time over data network ( VoIP), IRIS IVDX stands out in Indian PBX market with smart data features.

It is built on powerful 32 Bit RISC processor which can support upto 43000 ports, good enough for serving a small town. One of the important feature it incorporates is VoiP (voice over IP) where which allows direct connectivity between analog telephone with IP backbone.

Few of IRIS IVDX features are :

1. Large Audio Conferencing facility

It offers large audio conference facility where upto 64 people can take part in conference involving any knd of circuit, ie TDM or IP.

2. Inbuilt broadband facility

IRIS IVDX offers on board DSL capability which can be exploited to offer voice, data, video on same existing copper line. This is very important feature considering huge demand of broadband internet connectivity all around. It supports, ADSL, SHDSL, VDSL etc. for serving any kind of data speed.

3. ISDN “U” Interface

“Extends ISDN “U” Bus on a Single pair of copper wire up to a distance of 5 Kms from the exchange. All standard ISDN Equipment such as ISDN Phones, Video Conferencing equipment, etc, can be terminated using NT 1.”

Overall, IRIS IVDX is powerful high end PBX with many useful features. It is backed by excellent customisation and service support from Coral Telecom. Once I had integrated IRIS IVDX with intelligent CTI application and Coral had provided very good support during customising various ISDN features. This machine is modular in design which allows to upgrade on site.

Call hunting feature in PBX system

Uttam Pegu — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:44:54 +0000

What is call hunting ?
“Call Hunting” is a facility in PABX or any Telephone exchange which allows an incoming call to be landed on any extension or telephone number in a group of extensions or telephone numbers. There will be one “pilot number” which will be dialed by any person, and any call to that “pilot number” would land on any of the free line in a group which belongs to the pilot number group.
For example, in a PABX, 6600 is a pilot number which has hunting feature. 6601 to 6620 number are in a group whose pilot number is 6600. Now anyone calling 6600 may land on any number 6601 to 6620 depending on which is free! These 6601 to 6602 can be called directly too.

How it works
Normally, any call to pilot number will land route the call to next free channel available the group. Or, the sequence of hunting the numbers in the group, aptly called “hunt group” can be programmed and configured by user. It differs from automatic call distribution in a way that, it does not use any algorithm where calls land on all group members uniformly. In Hunting Call, the call always land on the next free number in the hunting sequence programmed.

Internal Numbers:
Some PBX allows hunting group to have its extensions only. They can not include any external PSTN number in their call hunt.

External Number
Some high end PBX has facility to include external PSTN number in its call hunt group. This kind of facility is also known as call follow. It is specially useful for time based routing where call to office number may be routed to home after 8PM at night!

Limitation

With the advent of automatic call distribution system, utility of call hunting has gone down as ACD offers much more flexibility as well as logical call landing to group members.

Major drawback is, its inability to allot calls to group numbers equally where all group members get fair share of calls.

Call hunting facility is still used as “call follow” or time based routing in PSTN exchanges for people which have more than one telephone connections. It is still useful for them as all numbers are used by one person. The telephone subscriber can program land call to the number where he is available immediately.

Call hunting is implemented in the PABX system only But it can also be implemented on a host PC using CTI. Implementing call hunting on a CTI platform may give many flexibility and logical routing of calls as per user requirement.

Call parking feature of PBX

Uttam Pegu — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:00:47 +0000

What is call parking ?
Call parking is an interesting feature available in modern EPABX, also known as PBX(Private Branch Exchange), which allows a person to put an active call on hold and then retrieve the same call from another telephone number or extension.

Normally, this is activated by any of the parties, either calling party or called party, by pressing some special button/key available on the telephone instrument or few sequence of keys. After a call is parked, the parked, it can be retrieved or it can be again activated by dialing parked number from any other telephone extension in the same PBX.

Example of how Call PArk feature in PBX is used :-

1. PBX extension 111 calls PBX extension 222.
2. Extension 222 picks the call, dials 7n where n is any digit used for “parking” the call. Extension 111 hears a “call hold” tone.
3. Now, another extension 333 can dial 77n and “pick the call”, it means extension 333 and extension 111 will be now connected.

Many PBX sends back the call to the original extension who has put the call on “PARK” by calling the extension again if the “parked call” is not again picked or activated by some extension again. In the above example, if extension 333 does not pick the call after certain time, 222 will ring again and it will be connected to extension 111.

The procedure for using “Call Parking” feature may vary from one PBX manufacturer to another. But the basic principle remains the same, only the key press sequence may vary.

Almost all modern PBX systems come with this feature. It is useful when a person needs to move from one place to another during a call in a office premise. In that case, instead of asking the caller to call again, on may put the call on parking and then pick up from the location and continue the conversation.

In hotel PBX, it can be a useful feature where front desk may park calls from guest rooms and then ask restaurant or other departments to pick the call. It works better than plain old call transfer, as it can ensure the call continuance. In simple call transfer, the transferred number may be busy or not at the desk.

ACD : Automatic Call Distribution

Uttam Pegu — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:31:43 +0000

ACD ( Automatic Call distribution ) is one of the most useful feature in a telephony application which routes incoming calls to certain extension numbers in a PBX system, or group of numbers depending on parameters like caller ID, dialed number. Previously, ACD feature was a built in feature in a PBX but with its growing usage and complexity, now a days, it is implemented as a separate module or CTI feature. Still, there are many PBX in India, which have ACD as built in feature, though with limited capabilities.

Why ACD is required ?

ACD ( Automatic Call Distribution) is required where there are large number of incoming calls and limited number of people to attend those calls. Without ACD system in place, the calls will not be distributed to uniformly among the people who attend the incoming calls. In a call center or contact center, ACD is particularly required as all human agents needs to be equally divided with incoming calls.

To treat some customers preferentially, ACD can be programmed to detect their caller ID and then route those calls to special executives to handle those calls. This not only reduces waiting period for preferential customers, but also increases customer retention and satisfaction.

How ACD works ?

ACD normally works on algorithm like LRU ( Least recently used) or Round Robin. In LRU, calls are always routed the group or extension which was not recently used. This way, calls are distributed evenly.

In Round Robin or circular distribution, all extensions are routed one by one. This is widely used as it is much easier to implement.

Since ACD is completely software based, many complex “routing schemes” to route incoming calls to desired extension or groups could be developed. ACDs are used in both inbound and outbound call centers and these calls could be routed as per skills who would be attending those calls. This is one of the reason why ACD is implemented as CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) based application now a days. Computer has high computing power without high level language support using which many intelligent routing algorithm could implemented as per business process in contact centers.

Main purpose of ACD is not burden any human agent in a call center and distribute calls equally among them. This can also provide information about human agents for monitoring online. ACD maintains call records which is useful for finding out calls attended by call center executives.

ACD implemented as a separate module on a computer using CTI boards can be very interactive with the usage of voice prompts, hold or wait music etc. IVR, Voice logger etc. could be implemented along with ACD.

ACD functionality is very useful feature in PBX system. Now a days, “plain vanilla” PBX for just making voice calls are no longer needed. One should always look for ACD feature in a PABX, if it does not a built in ACD feature, it should have option to have as a separate module or add on feature.

Interfaces of PBX

Uttam Pegu — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:30:54 +0000

Though PBX itself is a complete equipment and can perform standalone, but it can also be connected to many other equipments like other PBX, computer, PSTN etc. With connecting two or more PBX together, it is possible to build a large private voice and data network spread over large geographical area.

The interfaces of a PBX machine could be divided as follows :-

1. Interface with other PBX or PSTN
a. PSTN analog line
PSTN analog lines could be used to connect “trunk lines” in a PBX. PSTN lines in turn could be used to establish voice call with any telephone number in the world.

b. Trunk lines
Trunk lines are ports which are used for connecting any analog telephone extension. It can be a PSTN telephone line or extension of another PBX system.

d. ISDN
ISDN ( Integrated Services Data Network) is used to connecting other PBX, PSTN with digital protocol. It uses either E1 ( 2.048MBPS) or T1 ( 1.54MBPS) data link for connecting a PBAX machine from either PSTN network or PBX. It provides 30 voice channels while using E1 and 24 voice channels while using T1.

e. R2MF
Multiple Frequency R2 is another digital protocol which is used for connecting exchange to exchange. Now a days, it is not much used giving way for much simpler digital interface like ISDN PRI or SS7.

f. SS7

SS7 is the latest and most modern protocol for connecting two or more PBX. It has many features and flexibility to build large networks and connect variety of data and voice networks. It is widely used now a days and has many powerful and useful features for telephone network.

g. Proprietary

Many PBX manufacturers use their own proprietary interface protocol for connecting their own PBX systems. Now a days, usage of proprietary protocols is on the decline.

2. Interface with Computer

a. CTI Cards
To connect to a computer in order to use PBX voice and network resources, CTI boards are used. And CTI boards are connected with PBX using any of the above interfacing ( #1 above). Now a days, CTI applications widely used to provide voice applications like IVR ( Interactive voice response) systems, Voice mail, CRBT, Auto Dialer etc.

b. RS232 com port

RS232 or COM port interface is mainly provided to program PBX using a computer. It is also used to monitor calls online and download CDR ( call data record).

c. LAN
LAN or local area networking port is also provided in many PBX for voice recording as well as other online monitoring purpose.