History

Dedicated PBX The traditional PBX system is a standalone architecture which evolved from the manual switchboard operators in the 1960s. The electronic PBX carries this legacy. Installation of a PBX means creating a highly complicated setup that is specific for your company. Maintenance can only be done by the provider of the PBX.

It's no wonder then, that IP PBXs from traditional vendors are hard to install and maintain as well. They offer a little bit more flexibility, as they can integrate with the standard computer network. But once you engage in a traditional PBX project, you are locked in. Even simple maintenance like adding users can be a nightmare. Upgrading or scaling your setup means starting a new, very expensive project with your provider.

Centrex & VoIP? To reduce the maintenance overhead, the telecom industry came up with the Centrex model. Instead of having your own PBX, the telecom provider will manage your phone switching for you. The result, however, was a large platform, which was expensive and even more inflexible than a dedicated PBX.

The same approach is now used by small VoIP? companies, like Skype. Instead of controlling your own communication, these companies offer you a solution based completely on the internet. This has the same disadvantage as Centrex: you do not control the behavior of your own system. More importantly, if your Internet connection is down, you cannot use telephony.

ESCAUX hybrid architecture

ESCAUX offers a hybrid solution that offers the advantages of both setups, without any of the disadvantages.

on-site ESCAUX UCS appliance

ESCAUX provides an on-site appliance for all your communication. This means that your communication will be guaranteed to work, even if your Internet is down. The ESCAUX UCS appliance is dedicated to your communication: there is no overhead for administrative tasks, like generating statistics or reports. This makes one ESCAUX UCS appliance much more efficient than traditional solutions.

web-based configuration and administration

All tasks that are not related to the actual processing of your communication are handled by a centralized system of services. The ESCAUX services run in a secured data center and provide an easy web interface. With the services system, you can configure the behavior of your ESCAUX UCS appliance. Adding users, making new Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menus, and other operations can be done remotely. If you have more than one site, you can manage all these sites in the same management interface. This gives your system administrator the power on anything, from anywhere.

The operator console from ESCAUX was one of the most complete and the best we could find...