Review of 3CX IP PBX VoIP Phone System for Windows
What is VoIP?
VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, refers collectively to a set of technologies that allow for voice conversations to be transmitted via the Internet.
What is a PBX?
A PBX, or Private Branch eXchange, is a device - with or without software - that allows a business entity to easily configure and manage a block of phone numbers. Many medium to large businesses use PBXes for employee phones, over the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
What is an IP PBX?
An IP PBX is simply a PBX designed to work over the Internet. With some IP PBXes, everything is software based. Others have hardware components that allow for integration with the PSTN.
Why VoIP and IP PBXes?
VoIP and IP PBXes allow businesses to have advanced communications features at lower rates than with regular PSTN based technology. Part of the reason for lowered costs is a single set of wiring (your computer network), and the other is software based features. Additionally, if you’re using SIP-based IP PBXes and equipment, you have a wide array of equipment to choose from, instead of being bound to proprietary hardware of typical PSTN-based PBX makers.
What are 3CX’s Features?
Depending on your viewpoint, 3CX’s MS-Windows-based IP PBX phone system’s most important feature is that it is based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) VoIP standard. Besides making it thus compatible with other SIP VoIP systems software and hardware, phone numbers need not change when an employee has to move offices.
The 3CX system offers a VoIP Gateway, which allows it to be integrated with PSTN phone lines. So you can have a hybrid setup where internal calls are over VoIP and calls to and from outside the office are over PSTN.
Summary
3CX offers a fully integrated business grade VoIP solution with their partner netVortex. If you’re not yet ready to take a full plunge into enterprise IP PBXes, you can download a copy of their free edition, which includes a SIP server. This package works on Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, and offers voice mail, call transfer and other features - all supported at their 3CX forums. You wil need a proper SIP-based phone.
[Disclaimer: This is a paid review for 3CX sourced through ReviewMe.]
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October 24th, 2007 at 11:36 am
NOT READY FOR PRIME-TIME!
Over the last few weeks I have testing the free 3CX SIP server, largely due to the favorable review here, and I have to say, that while it is feature rich, easy to use and even in it’s three not-so-free incarnation very affordable, it has one insurmountable flaw: Unstable Registration!
After days of having been unaware of any outages - 3CX does not have any means by which it could alert to them - I found, by studying the logs, that the PBX goes off-line for 10 minutes at a time, virtually every time there is a registration time out or momentary loss of connectivity.
While, according to developers and staff at 3CX, a retry escalation, beginning in second increments, is supposed to kick in, the test PBX reacted exclusively with 10-minute timeouts, before retry.
Lengthy attempts at trying to solve the problem, using 3CX’ support forum, yielded little to no usable info. Developer and users alike simply repeated their mantra of ‘opening port 5060′ and ‘try to register a soft-phone’. Any and all attempts to get the issue resolved at the company-level were meet only with attempts to sell the software, including a support agreement - not at all encouraging.
At this time I cannot recommend the 3CX SIP server and suggest to those interested in operating an IP PBX to stay with the Linux-/Asterisk-based flavors, which are as much infinitely more complex as they are infinetly more reliable.
Paul
November 16th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I have tried 3CX Phone System too, and it worked just great for me. Installed it in 30 minutes max - Spent more time reading the manual than installing it, ran it with Grandstream phones and softphones such as SJ Labs and Xlite and had no registration issues at all.
Got my sub-6 year old kids to hammer away at playing phone games with each other - Child’s play.
Have been using it ever since even via remote extensions over the Internet.
November 17th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Paul Said - you sound suspiciously a lot like a competitor of 3cx who is unhappy with the extensive feature set of the free edition!
I have used 3CX Phone System reliable in several installations already, and i found it much easier to use then a linux based solution
February 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
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August 28th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I tried 3CX and was somewhat underwhelmed - not very intuitive and missing strong IVR capabilities. Check out CallButler http://www.codeplex.com/callbutler. It is a Windows-based open source PBX that has some really impressive IVR tools, intuitive interface and better audio quality than 3CX…plus, it’s free!
August 13th, 2009 at 8:50 am
C’est un bon petit téléphone voip, parce que tous les autres téléphones libre sip ne comprennent pas les transfert d’appel, qui est une nécessité dans toute société. Également le support des micro-casques Plantronics.
et plus d’inforamtion sur ce softphone voila un article que j’ai déjà écris sur son utilisation et ces avantages.
http://phonegratuit.blogspot.com/2009/08/voip-telephone-systeme-de-3cx-pour.html
September 8th, 2009 at 9:06 am
unlike Asterisk, 3CX is not open source… just like allez MSW related products, you can apprciate the meal but you have no way to know how to cook it .. all the difference is here .. so i am still prefering ”the complexity” of asteris.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:55 am
I totally agree with birouk that unlike Asterisk, 3CX is not open source, however 3CX is best solution for a small SOHO setup. Impressive piece of information, let me elaborate more on VoIP. Voice over Internet Protocol has been around since many years. But due to lack of sufficient and affordable bandwidth it was not possible to carry carrier grade voice over Internet Protocol. But since the arrival of low cost internet bandwidth and new speech codecs such as G.729, G.723 which utilizes very low payload to carry carrier class voice it has recently been possible to leverage the true benefits of VoIP. G.723 codec utilizes only 6 Kbps (Kilo Bytes/sec) which is capable of maintaining a constant stream of data between peers and deliver carrier grade voice quality. Lets put this way if you have 8 Mbps internet connection, by using G.723 codec you can run upto 100 telephone lines with crystal clear and carrier grade voice quality. I am also a user of VoIP and have setup a small PBX at home. Since I have discovered VoIP I have never used traditional PSTN service.
Dear readers, if you have not yet tried VoIP I suggest that you try VoIP technology and I bet you will never want to use the traditional PSTN phone service ever again. VoIP has far more superior features to offer which traditional PSTN sadly cannot offer.
Also It has recently been possile to carry Video alongwith VoIP by using low payload video codecs. I cannot resist to tell you that by using T.38 passthrough and disabling VAD VoIP can carry FAX transmission, but beaware FAX T.38 passthrough will only work when using wide band protocols such as G.711, a-Law and u-Law.
By using ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) which converts VoIP signals into traditional PSTN you can also using Dial-up modems to connect to various dialup services. I wont go in to the details what VoIP can offer, to cut my story short VoIP is a must to have product for every business and individual.
How VoIP Works
When we make a VoIP call, a communication channel is established between caller and called party over IP (Internet Protocol) which runs on top of computer data networks. A telephony conversation that takes place over VoIP are converted into binary data packets streams in real time and transmitted over data network, when these data packets arrive at the destination these are again converted into standard telephony conversation. This whole process of voice conversion into data, transmission and data conversion into back voice conversation takes place within less than few milliseconds. That is how a VoIP is call is transmitted over data networks. I hope that now you understand basics of how a VoIP call takes place.
What are speech codec’s and what role codec plays in VoIP?
Speech codec play a vital role in VoIP and codec determines the quality and cost of the call. Let me explain you what exactly VoIP codec’s are and how they work. You may have heard about data compression, or probably you have heard about air compressor which compresses a volume of air in enclosed container, VoIP codec’s are no different than a air compressor. Speech codec’s compresses voice into data packets and decompresses it upon arrival at destination. Some VoIP codec’s can compress huge amount of voice while maintaining QoS which means use this type of codec will cost less because it will consume just a fraction of data network. Some codec’s are just not capable of encoding huge amount of voice they simply consume huge amount of data networks bandwidth hence the cost goes up.
Following is a list of VoIP codec’s along with how much data network bandwidth they consume.
* AMR Codec
* BroadVoice Codec 16Kbps narrowband, and 32Kbps wideband
* GIPS Family - 13.3 Kbps and up
* GSM - 13 Kbps (full rate), 20ms frame size
* iLBC - 15Kbps,20ms frame size: 13.3 Kbps, 30ms frame size
* ITU G.711 - 64 Kbps, sample-based Also known as alaw/ulaw
* ITU G.722 - 48/56/64 Kbps ADPCM 7Khz audio bandwidth
* ITU G.722.1 - 24/32 Kbps 7Khz audio bandwidth (based on Polycom’s SIREN codec)
* ITU G.722.1C - 32 Kbps, a Polycom extension, 14Khz audio bandwidth
* ITU G.722.2 - 6.6Kbps to 23.85Kbps. Also known as AMR-WB. CELP 7Khz audio bandwidth
* ITU G.723.1 - 5.3/6.3 Kbps, 30ms frame size
* ITU G.726 - 16/24/32/40 Kbps
* ITU G.728 - 16 Kbps
* ITU G.729 - 8 Kbps, 10ms frame size
* Speex - 2.15 to 44.2 Kbps
* LPC10 - 2.5 Kbps
* DoD CELP - 4.8 Kbps
Switch to VoIP Today and you will never want to use traditional PSTN ever again.
Thanks
-Imran