Who can tell when bandwidth will be scarce at your office – used by those nosy neighbors with the gaming server in the break room?
Many people believe that using a cloud-based phone system uses more bandwidth than an IP-PBX that is located on site. However, depending on the usage, there are many times where cloud-based phone systems use considerably less internet throughput.
Forwarding to Cell Phones
When forwarding calls to cell phones, cloud-based phone systems – such as our MBX service – do not use any of your internet since the call is being forwarded from our network instead of using your network to forward the call. So, when a call is taken on a cell phone using an IP-PBX system, your network’s internet is used for the incoming call and for the call that is going out. In high-definition or in U-LAW (uncompressed audio), this would use 160k from your upload AND download for the duration of the call, even though it is on an external cell phone. With the cloud based MBX, there is no internet usage.
Playing Music on Hold
When you play music on hold with an IP-PBX, you are forced to use high-definition audio (G.722) or U-LAW codecs in order for the music to play clearly. This uses 80k of your network’s upload speed. With MBX, music is played from our network and does not use any of your upload speed. This allows you to use compressed audio (G.729) for your voice calls, which only uses 40k up and down, and can help you save even more bandwidth without compromising the perceived audio quality for music on hold.
Playing Greetings & Auto Attendants
With MBX, all greetings and audio messages are played from the MBX network and do not use any internet from your network. With an IP-PBX, all greetings and auto-attendant messages are played using your network’s internet connection and consequently requires a constant 80k of your upload speed – per caller.
Call Queues
With an IP-PBX, while customers are on hold, they again are using your network’s upload speed at a minimum rate of 80k per caller. With MBX, while callers are listing to your on-hold marketing messages and waiting to be connected, they are not using any of your network’s internet.