Office PBX
Within your office Perihelion provides a modern exchange (PBX) that uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology. Instead of separate wiring for phones and network you use the network cabling for phone calls. The PBX connects to the phone system through analogue or ISDN connections provided by the phone company. It also connects to the internet through your broadband connection, and allows calls to be placed using VoIP to a central server maintained by Perihelion Telecom.
The PBX provides all the services you would expect from a top-of-the range system. All the normal features such as holding calls (with music on hold), transferring calls, parking calls and conferencing are naturally provided, along with all the major advanced features such as voicemail (which can be emailed to you), call queuing (with time estimates of how long you are likely to be waiting), follow-me systems and time-dependent hunt groups. A complete IVR system is also included allowing you to easily construct menus and responses driven by caller’s keypad responses. Naturally there are no limits to the number of incoming trunks or extensions.
All features, including voicemail, are available through phones or web pages. A click-to-call feature is available for Outlook users, enabling a number to be called simply by selecting it from the Outlook Contact entry.
Central PBX
Perihelion’s central servers allow calls to be diverted directly into your PBX with no call charges. Because the servers are located in the heart of the UK internet system at Telehouse, London they can be contacted from any suitable VoIP device anywhere in the world.
Additionally the central servers are interconnected through gateways to the phone network in a wide variety of countries. Outgoing calls can be routed via these gateways as opposed to using the local phone connection, resulting in massive savings on call costs, especially for international calls.
Incoming numbers can be purchased both in the UK (both geographic and non-geographic) and anywhere in the world, allowing a caller in the US to dial a local Californian number (for example) and have the call delivered to your PBX with no additional call charges beyond the local cost.
Home workers or offshore workers can have a SIP phone wherever they are (as long as they have a reasonably fast connection to the Internet) and these users look exactly as if they were in the office. They can answer incoming calls, make external calls via the company's landlines, call any other extension for free, participate in inter-company conference calls, and hold, park or transfer calls. The company saves office space; the worker saves increasingly expensive commute costs.
