Picture a busy day in your office. Phones are ringing. People are asking for your service and they are willing to pay a lot for it. Then without warning, all the phones go silent. Your colleagues peak out of their office, or over the top of their cubicle and look to you as the local in-department tech guru to fix the phone problem. Smiling, you say you'll take care of it. You pick up your phone to call the in-house IT professional and discover that local extensions have also failed. At this point it is clear that your office is no longer connected to the hosted PBX.
Hosted PBX systems provide a quick and easy solution for small businesses. Using a hosted solution reduces the initial cost of a VoIP installation and allows the system to be remotely managed and maintained off-site. While this creates an attractive package for many businesses, little thought may be given to what happens if the connection to the hosted PBX fails.
To eliminate the risk of losing all phone functionality, it is important to install a backup solution in the local office. No, you don't need to invest in an entirely new PBX, just a small bare-bones application that allows your office to partially function if something happens.
beroNet provides a solution for this scenario called a "Survival Branch Appliance" installed directly onto a beroNet gateway. This app functions as a backup to your primary hosted PBX and automatically takes over if the connection to the hosted PBX fails. While the functionality of this system is limited compared to solutions such as MobyDick or 3CX, the beroNet Survival Branch Appliance allows you to continue making internal and outbound calls, as well as receive incoming calls either individually or in call groups. As a beroNet gateway can be registered with a SIP trunk and function as a gateway to a PSTN connection, you can either direct calls over SIP or the PSTN until the hosted PBX comes back online.
To learn more about using beroNet's Survival Branch Appliance, download the tutorial here, or contact sales@beronet.com.