Despite the benefits of VoIP, such as versatility, mobility and potential savings on call costs, many companies still opt for traditional analogue PBX systems which offer limited, if any, VoIP support. Indeed, many of the PBX vendors are still punting analogue systems just because it’s what they know. However, the benefits of VoIP are significant, and they can be realised without breaking the bank.

This is where the Switchvox product range comes into the picture. Developed by Digium, the sponsors of the Asterisk PBX project, the Switchvox range caters for every size of business. There are three products in the Switchvox range. The entry-level unit, the Switchvox 65, is a desktop or wall mounted unit which is designed for up the 30 users. The mid-level model the Switchvox 305, is ideal for up to 150 users and can be desktop mounted or rack mounted. Lastly, the enterprise product, the Switchvox 355, serves up to 400 users and is designed to be rack-mounted.

The Switchvox Range

Each of these three units can be bought with an optional “cold standby” unit for extra peace of mind and, of course, they support any kind of telephony interface you could want, from analogue interfaces to ISDN interfaces. In our environment we use SNOM 300 handsets on our desks and a Quintum/Net Tenor SIP gateway for our BRI lines, and the Switchvox unit worked seamlessly with all of these products.

The three Switchvox models offer essentially the same feature set, and a very impressive feature set at that. Being the sponsors of the Asterisk project, it’s no surprise that Digium have developed the Switchvox on Asterisk-based code. That means that you get all the features that come with Asterisk, such as:

• Call conferencing
• Call recording
• Voicemail
• Music on hold
• Call queues
• Ring groups
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menus
• Day/night features
• Etc.

However, there is a lot more to the Switchvox product than a standard Asterisk install…

The feature that made this PBX stand out in our eyes was the fact that it has an iPhone app! That’s right – using the custom Switchvox app, you can access the PBX via the Internet, and do anything you could do from your land line at the office. The app allows you to do the more mundane tasks, such as check your voicemail, etc. but what makes it so great is that you can place and receive calls to/from your iPhone, via the PBX, all over VoIP. This saves you a lot of money on your cellular bill of course, and the person receiving the call can’t tell the difference; even the caller ID shows your office number. It take mobility to a whole new level.

Another of our favorite features is the ”converged phones” feature, which allows a user’s calls to be routed to them, wherever they are (even if they don’t have the iPhone app, for example). Using a simple web interface, the user can set up their mobile phone and link it to their landline number so that calls can be routed to them when they are out of the office, according to their own preferences. This gives each user the ability to configure and manage their own telephony as they see fit.

Another crowd-pleaser is the web-based switchboard interface, which offers all the functionality of a traditional switchboard telephone and a lot more. For example, each user can configure their own call features, voicemail and fax settings, call reports, and more. They can also access their own customisable switchboard interface, should they wish. And the list goes on… it really is a very feature-rich PBX system.

So, given all the listed features, how did our own testing of the Switchvox unit pan out?

Well, to start off with, our own test of the Switchvox unit was arranged by Miro Distribution, the local importers of the Digium product range. They kindly offered us the use of one of their demo units for testing purposes and the minute we got our hands on it we couldn’t resist playing with the rich feature set. In fact, within hours of receiving the unit we had decided that a quick demo wasn’t enough – it needed to be properly tested, in a live environment!

With that in mind, we disconnected our own PBX and dropped in the Switchvox unit in its place. We had no hassles at all getting the system to work with our own SNOM phones and our SIP/BRI gateway, and ever since then we have been running on the Switchvox loan unit. We use five separate IVR menus, each with a number of different options based on caller ID, time of day, call queue status, etc. and we had no trouble whatsoever with getting the Switchvox to do exactly what we wanted. The configuration is as simple as it can be, given the number of features it offers, and we found ourselves adding in a few extra caller options, just because it was so easy.

Our verdict on the Switchvox PBX is that it has to be the coolest PBX we’ve seen. It truly offers a great feature set, and for a reasonable price at that. Putting aside the cost savings that can be achieved by utilising VoIP, this system is worth investing in just for its feature set. If you’re in the market for a PBX any time soon, be sure to find out about the Switchvox product range!

The only trouble now is that we probably should give this demo unit back…