Vox Orion launches hosted PBX service

Vox Orion, the managed voice services provider within the Vox Telecom Group, has launched a hosted PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange) service, Verto, that promises to bring all the benefits of cloud computing and hosted services to South Africa's corporate telephony market.

The traditional PBX out of the box

“Verto takes the traditional PBX out of the box and puts all that intelligence into the network,” says Vox Orion MD Jacques du Toit. “It's based on robust and reliable commercial open source innovation that's already supporting more than 550 000 extensions.”

Du Toit says Verto is a natural progression of the Vox Telecom Group's strategy to become a complete alternative telecommunications provider. “It's a perfect fit with our Cristal Vox converged voice and data network, and our clients have responded with enthusiasm to this development of our managed services.

Single large head office

“The first organisations to have expressed interest are national companies that have a single large head office and a wide network of small branches,” says Du Toit. “Installing an advanced PBX at each branch has never made financial sense, and as a result the smaller branches have been restricted from a lot of services,” he says. “With Verto, every person, in every branch, has access to specifically the same services, at the same price.”

Other customers have included those wanting to take the first step into IP telephony. “The financial and efficiency benefits of IP telephony are very persuasive, nevertheless it's a new field for many people. Several of our customers have installed Verto to test unified communications, presence management and fixed-mobile convergence.”

Verto is particularly attractive, adds Du Toit, because of the exceptionally low risk to the client. “Provided we have conducted a full LAN audit to ensure that the client's network is voice-ready, we guarantee that if they are not happy with the quality of the service they can cancel at any time.”

The basic Verto feature set for Level 1 users includes conference calling, call forwarding, call waiting, alerts, a 'do not disturb' setting, dial-by-name functionality, redials, return calls and pick-up groups. Level 2 users as well get access to voicemail, voicemail to e-mail conversion, call recording, hunt and page groups, call screening and summary call histories.

Verto can as well integrate easily with external applications, including voice loggers, predictive diallers and telephone management systems. “It combines all the functionality of a traditional PBX and an advanced IP telephony platform,” says Du Toit. “Verto is future-proof as the software is constantly being upgraded and developed to include new innovation developments.”

The top-end corporate market

Vox Orion is focused on delivering complete managed voice solutions to the top-end corporate market. Considered a pioneer in what was known as the least cost routing market, Vox Orion has since extended its solution offering and but prides itself on its technical expertise and research and is widely regarded as a leading innovator in the telco industry. Vox Orion serves 60% of the top 200 listed companies on the JSE and has significant government contracts, including four provincial governments, SANDF, SAPS and 56 local town councils. Vox Orion has offices in all the major South African cities as then as nine smaller towns and offers a range of guaranteed savings models within its managed voice solutions offering, also as messaging, telephone management and PABX solutions.