Let’s face it, things have changed for business. They are not going to go back to the way they were. And we need new ways to manage the “new normal”, fast.

Take for instance your office PABX system: A PABX, or PBX as it’s also known, is a switchboard that allows everyone in the company to make and receive calls from the same number or numbers, and transfer and forward calls between each other. Sounds simple enough, right?

Why then has it traditionally been such a frighteningly complicated beast?

First, it needs to be put in a “secure”, air-conditioned corner of your office – normally the IT guys’ secret lair somewhere.

Then it needs to have connectivity – wires – dragged into it and connected. Then have smaller wires dragged out of it, to telephones on each desk. And then it needs to be programmed.

Finally, someone needs to manage it and monitor it, usually on a costly maintenance SLA.

Shiny and new

Unless, of course, you were recently sold a shiny new “cloud-hosted PABX”. Then the beast lives somewhere else, in someone else’s dungeon, and they manage it for you. But you still need big wires and even better fibre, dragged from the (now remote) dungeon to your own premises, and then the smaller wires dragged into offices, meeting rooms and cubicles, and now these are connected to nice smart (and even more expensive) IP phones. All done by a cohort of very expensive IT techs.

All done! But the problem is now … there is nearly nobody left in your offices, as most are working from home. So now you have the wires rerouted to home offices, and the IP phones moved … but the call quality starts to falter as the home offices don’t have unlimited or properly prioritised bandwidth, and the kids’ Minecraft meets regularly bring Zoom and calls to their knees at the very worst moments.

VoIP apps?

So, then your IP PBX provider installs magic VoIP apps on your cellphones, which connect back to your hosted PBX over an even thinner and dodgier, best-effort data signal that is now carried by your cellular network… And your calls are now more erratic and sound even worse.

Sound familiar? Well, fear not, this does not need to be your “new normal”.

It is no secret that the real problem with voice-over-IP systems has always been the IP part.

In other words, trying to send voice calls over a medium that was designed for data doesn’t work. There is nothing wrong with VoIP on paper. In fact, it is a brilliant bit of technology. But in practice, the data networks it is expected to run over often fail.

This is why on a fibre line and with an uncontested data signal, your VoIP will work well, but when out and about, on your cellphone, roaming from 4G to 3G to sometimes Edge, swapping cell towers occasionally, sometimes on home Wi-Fi, sometimes at the office, you’re on a hiding to nothing with a VoIP connection.

Out with the old

Until now there was no alternative to this sad state of affairs. So, allow us to introduce NoPBX, with its brand-new technology called PBX-over-GSM.

NoPBX is a new concept in company switchboards, developed right here in South Africa, that:

Works using only your existing smartphones, which means no need for ANY additional hardware investment to get up and running.
Uses real GSM calls to connect you, not voice over data, which means guaranteed call quality on every call with no need to have a reliable data signal present.
Is configured so that there is no cost to your employees’ cellphones, which means never having to calculate and pay out cellphone allowances or reimbursements ever again!

So, in reality, with NoPBX you really don’t need a PABX any more … just think of all that saving!

With NoPBX, you are freed of all of the traditional PABX “infrastructure” costs, including data lines, data connection management and shaping, firewalls, routers, and IP phone devices. None of these is necessary anymore, just your existing smartphones running the free NoPBX smartphone app, on either Android or iOS.

Another enormous benefit of NoPBX is that it works anywhere there is a GSM signal, no data required, and there are no charges to transfer or forward calls between employees, no matter where they are in the country. Your employees are therefore always in touch when they need to be and can be free to work from wherever they wish, not just from “home where the company-funded data line is”.

Trabel, the creators of NoPBX, make several bold claims about NoPBX: that it is the simplest cloud-hosted PBX in South Africa, the easiest to set up, the quickest to set up, the easiest to manage and has the lowest total cost of ownership. As an instant solution for any business starting up fast or wishing to contain costs and work remotely, it certainly ticks all these boxes.

For more information, or to trial your own NoPBX solution today, visit www.nopbx.co.za. Dealer enquiries are also welcome.

About Trabel
Trabel is a South African technology development company founded in 2019, based primarily in Cape Town and operational throughout South Africa. NoPBX is a fully hosted PBX-over-GSM, with Android and iOS connectivity. More information can be found at www.trabel.co.za and www.nopbx.co.za.