Next Version Of Open-Source PBX App BowsNext Version Of Open-Source PBX App Bows

The latest version of the open source PBX platform sipXpbx v.3 is now available, said Massachusetts-based SIPfoundry on Tuesday. The one-file Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based PBX platform that enables real-time communications is available here.

Building on the sipXpbx platform, developers at SIPfoundry have expanded functions and capabilities. "It's been a technology step forward and the result of a year worth of work from a broad community," said Martin Steinmann, a member of the board of directors at SIPfoundry, an open source community that Boston venture capital firm Vesbridge Partners LLC helped to found two years ago. "The PBX phone system we are talking over now runs on sipXpbx. We just deployed it at our office last week."

The platform's plug-and-play capabilities made installation easy, Steinmann said. A new server was set-up in the company's IT rack. So in addition to running a server for the Microsoft e-mail system, Vesbridge now runs the Linux operating system and SIP exchange software. Polycom IP phones were installed and connected via Ethernet rather than a traditional hard-wired telephone line. Information was keyed into the system and the phones turned on.

Configuring and getting the signaling systems for caller ID and other features on the T1 truck, which the voice calls come into the enterprise over from the carriers working correctly proved the biggest difficulty.

The word "PBX" conjures up images of a big machine running proprietary applications that sits isolated from the data and the IT infrastructure to manage the enterprise's voice communications. Those days are gone. The new sipXpbx release delivers a fundamentally new approach to addressing real-time communications needs within the enterprise for voice, instant messaging and video.

The sipXpbx platform now has scalable architecture, presence server, support for multiple and nested auto attendants, advanced call control, forwarding identification support, and interoperability support that have been tested with dozens of SIP-compliant phones and gateways.

The benefits are both economic and progressive. For Vesbridge, sipXpbx created a voice over IP platform. All the calls between Vesbridge's two offices bypass the telecommunications carrier, saving on monthly local and long-distant call charges that add-up quickly.

Vesbridge, for example, has a partner in London whose employee once called in on a hardwire phone. His office phone is now Internet-based with the ability to travel with wherever he goes. It lets you take your office phone number with anywhere in the world by plugging it into a data connection, Steinmann said. "The capx expenditure, including the phones, in our case, is between 40 percent and 50 percent less," he said. "If you just look at the server side it's probably 80 percent less because all you need is a standard Dell or HP server."