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Providing a business with a highly sophisticated and effective telephone system requires a virtual PBX phone system. It is one of the most important components of a virtual office because it supplies the most complete telephone solution to a business. Some of the standard elements that may come with a virtual PBX service are: call routing, teleconferencing, toll free or local number, virtual receptionist and internet faxing.

To build a simple virtual PBX requires the following:

  1. VoIP Gateway – is also known as PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) Gateway. It is a device that converts telephone traffic into IP transmission so it can be send over a data network. But it can be used in 2 ways: either conversion of PSTN to VoIP/SIP or connection of a PBX phone system to an IP network.
  2. Soft IP Phone – this is a software that can turn a desktop PC into an IP phone. It usually requires some audio hardware (it can be a sound card and speakers, an earphone and a microphone, or a complete USB phone set) in order to function properly on a computer.
  3. IP Phone – is a hardware-based IP phone that uses the VoIP technology. It allows telephone calls to be transmitted over a data network or the internet instead of a PSTN line. Analog phones, with the use of an adapter, are sometimes used as IP phones. But IP phones have many features that cannot be found on an analog telephone.
  4. SIP Server – this is a software that uses a protocol, particularly the session initiation protocol, to control multimedia communications like video, voice, instant messaging, streaming or games into an IP network. With the use of several media streams it can manage a two or multiparty sessions.

With these components it is possible to build a virtual PBX system.