Get best of the week

Advantages of 3CX in building a distributed network

Organizations that have several branches, sooner or later have to choose a solution that can support a single telephone network for communication of remote units.

The main factors that influence the choice of a company:

  • lack of payment for calls between offices;
  • fault tolerance and reliability of the solution;
  • high quality voice communications;
  • lack of time loss when communicating with other offices.

Most modern IP-PBXs solve the problem at a basic level: for example, an employee from Yekaterinburg can always call colleagues in Minsk or Krasnodar for free. The main difficulties will be revealed in the details. For example, employees will not see the status of extension numbers in other offices, will not be able to transfer a call to a colleague from another city, the incoming request will not be put in the general queue, etc. This creates problems even when different stages of the same business process go through. in different offices, and in the case of distributed call centers that solve one common problem.

Similar issues and many other tasks are successfully solved using the IP-PBX 3CX deployed on the customer’s server or in the cloud:

  • consolidation of internal numbers in all offices into a common numbering plan (moreover, with any breakdown by groups and in any order) or, conversely, their inclusion in different numbering plans, if business processes require it;
  • Routing calls to groups in different branches;
  • single IVR as part of a common numbering plan;
  • call parking as part of a common numbering plan;
  • call transfer within the framework of a common numbering plan;
  • BLF statuses visible to all users.

Consider the last paragraph on a specific example. When using automatic telephone exchanges that cannot transfer statuses to each other, the field of DSS buttons with BLF on the Yealink SIP-T48G telephone looks like this, including numbers from both the home office and other cities:

image

Non-resident colleagues are grayed out and their numbers statuses are not displayed. 3CX successfully solves this problem. It will look like this, already without gray values:

image

There are a number of other advantages when using a software IP-PBX (3CX) rather than a hardware telephone exchange in a branch network:

  • lack of logistics costs : there is no need to physically send “iron” automatic telephone exchanges to all offices;
  • no need for additional staff : remote configuration eliminates the need for a trained engineer in the branch office;
  • : 3 IP- ( ), ;
  • : 3 ( );
  • : 3CX ( , , ) e-mail ;
  • simple system upgrade : thanks to 3CX, a phased transition from an outdated telephone network to modern IP-audio and video communications runs smoothly and without overpayments; PBX upgrade with integration of all necessary channels (SIP, E1, PSTN, etc.) can be performed at any time and any number of times.

image

Speaking about using 3CX in several offices, we consider two main scenarios:

  • one “large” IP-PBX for the entire pool of subscribers;
  • own "small" IP-PBX in each division.

There are both technical and economic differences in the implementation of these scenarios.

Cost


Consider an organization with a central office for 100 employees, two call centers for 20 operators in the regions, and a remote R & D center for 50 engineers.

When installing a single IP-PBX, it is necessary to take into account the number of employees (about 200), high call density (call centers) and the functionality necessary for a call center. A 3CX Enterprise license for 64 simultaneous calls with an estimated retail price of 326,232 rubles per year meets the requirements.

In the case of distributed IP-PBXs, you may encounter the fact that some departments will need a full range of functions, while others will only need basic capabilities (a small number of calls, mainly outgoing calls). An approximate calculation will be as follows:

image

There is a saving of 73,140 rubles per year.

If we consider a simpler example - two absolutely identical offices - we can see that, for example, two IP-PBXs with 16 simultaneous calls cost 11.5% less than one IP-PBX of 32 OV.

Technical implementation


And in the first and second example, a number of restrictions must be taken into account:

  • the need to configure two IP-PBXs (additional costs and time costs are possible);
  • impossible to control load distribution. For example, in two offices in different time zones, the total can be no more than 100 simultaneous calls, and separately (in a peak load period that does not coincide in time) - 80 each.

One of the advantages of using multiple IP-PBXs on different servers is the potential increase in the fault tolerance of the system as a whole. In the event of a server failure or lack of Internet in one of the units, the rest will be able to communicate with each other on other routes. In this case, external lines can also be configured independently.

image

Conclusion


Regardless of the connection scheme, 3CX provides the user with wide functional capabilities, including specialized options for various business fields (for example, hotels and call centers).

In addition, the possibility of holding web-conferences with up to 250 participants, as well as useful functions for mobile employees, make 3CX solutions very attractive for modern companies that are actively using unified communications. Thus, a corporate communication system based on 3CX solutions provides the optimal combination of investments and the volume of tasks.

More articles:


All Articles