Virtual PBX announced its introduction of native support for open-system VoIP peering. Small businesses looking to take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of traditional hosted PBX services and VoIP technology now have the best of both worlds. Customers will be able to mix and match a VoIP network, softphone and handset to best meet their needs for features, cost and reliability. In addition, clients can choose VoIP calls for cost savings or traditional phone service for calls to landlines or cellular phones, or enable both and let the system automatically send calls via the most appropriate method.

A hosted PBX service provides customers with advanced phone answering and call routing features without the expense of purchasing PBX hardware or the added costs of installation, ongoing maintenance and support. Virtual PBX was the first company to bring this service to market. Hosted PBX services have become very popular among small businesses due to the inviting combination of low upfront costs and high-end business features.

Technology Choice

With this announcement, Virtual PBX is providing a "blended" service, allowing calls to be routed however the client wants with the attendant benefits for each technology. Calls sent directly to landlines or cell phones over the PSTN typically have the highest quality, but cost more. IP-based calls usually cost less and can often be bundled with extra services. In addition, calls sent from Virtual PBX will go directly to the appropriate network, eliminating the quality issues that can arise when calls are translated between standard phone lines and VoIP.

Vendor Choice

Since hosted PBX providers that support native VoIP traffic usually have closed, proprietary implementations, little choice of providers is given to clients. Customers have usually been locked into VoIP, softphone and even telephone handset offerings from the same company that provides the PBX service. Virtual PBX is giving its users more choice by supporting open standards. Rather than being limited to the features and capabilities of just a single vendor, clients can choose the offering that best fits their needs. Virtual PBX believes that this will ultimately provide richer services for clients, since each player can bring unique content and features to the table. At the same time, total costs can be cut by sending more traffic through less expensive technologies. There is no extra cost from Virtual PBX for accessing softphones as opposed to other players who charge extra for proprietary digital-enabled phone extensions.

Support for Standards

The company's first implementation, available now, works with any solution that is fully SIP-compliant and uses North America Numbering Plan (NANP) phone numbering for destination identification. This approach will interoperate with Gizmo5's popular Macintosh and Microsoft Windows VoIP software, giving Virtual PBX clients a free softphone while competitors charge for PC clients. It will also work with numerous university phone systems -- such as those at UCLA, MIT, BYU and others -- and all other providers that follow this standard in an open peering environment. In December, Virtual PBX will extend the implementation to other suppliers that allow open, SIP-compliant traffic to their networks. The company invites discussion with all other SIP-based companies.

Virtual PBX and Gizmo5 have worked together to integrate software and services to provide a reliable and cost-effective SMB solution. "We welcome Virtual PBX to the open-system SIP community and see strong potential benefit for users who combine offerings from Virtual PBX and Gizmo5," said Michael Robertson, CEO of Gizmo5. "Open SIP peering already works across hundreds of networks, and we're delighted to add this market-leading hosted PBX provider to the group. We believe that all VoIP providers should open their systems and let calls from different networks connect to each other."