General:

User:

Our team were some of the original engineers and architects of the award winning Praxon PDX, a 200 user scalable PBX. Even after the venture capitalists pulled out during the Dot-Com bust, the PDX has survived as a product through several hands. In 2005, we purchased the intellectual property from Telavergence of Texas and began re-engineering the system to suit small businesses. The Phoenix has risen from that design and has the power and versatility of the PDX. You are in total control of your own phone system - the built-in web interface makes it easy!

While the advertised price of a VOIP PBX will initially appear less expensive, Phoenix includes all of the software at one low price. A VOIP system requires VOIP phones which are significantly more expensive – so compare system prices that include the VOIP phones. Since Phoenix and Virtual Console allow 6 calls on hold to a desktop using a regular single line phone, why deal with the added expense of needing a large bandwidth internet connection for your small office VOIP phones. Phoenix provides the benefit of being digital internally and analog externally. You won’t have any of the choppiness or stuttering that occurs when using VOIP.

VOIP long distance providers (like Vonage) charge a monthly flat rate for unlimited calling. We recommend purchasing a VOIP adapter from Vonage or others at your local office supply store (less than $75), and connecting it to a Phoenix “line”. Set up that line as a separate trunk group with a different access digit – 4 as an example. So, to place a free long distance call using Phoenix and Vonage, dial a “4” first, then the number. Remember, every call over VOIP will require around 90Kb of internet bandwidth.

Yes. We have tested the Virtual Console install program and Virtual Console and they appear to work fine with Vista.

Phoenix uses the VxWorks operating system. You may recognize the name, it was used in the Mars Lander a few years back. It is much more reliable than your normal PC operating system! Have you ever had to reboot your PC to get it to behave again?

Phoenix also uses a journalizing file system on a Compact Flash card to prevent hard disk crashes and file corruption. An extremely quiet, multi-speed, thermostatically controlled fan runs when needed to keep the system cool for reliability.

Phoenix is not a toy in a plastic box. Our chassis is vinyl coated metal for strength and durability. This also gives the product a “solid” feel.

There is also a Gold Warranty program available to Phoenix customers for added peace of mind. In this program, customers provide us with a backup as often as they wish for storage on our encrypted file servers. If the system fails, we load that backup on a flash card, install it in another system, and overnight ship an entire replacement system. The switch over time is a minute since all of the connectors are modular phone style.

The software in Phoenix can support 200 users – each with a voice mailbox and a logical extension. The Phoenix hardware can support up to 16 physical phones, fax machines or credit card machines. The system allows for retrieval of voice mails from the outside world, so having more logical users on the system than phones can be useful in some applications.

The Phoenix flash card contains all of the system software and the voice mail files. There is enough storage for 20 hours of high quality audio recording with the included flash card. The twenty hours is available to all users of the system on an as-needed basis. In other words, a user can use 19 hours if needed and all the others will then only have access to 1 hour of remaining storage.

Yes. In this situation, (1) create a department and department greeting for each of the “companies”. (2) Set up a separate “trunk” group for each companies inbound phone line. (3) Set the “Receive Incoming Calls” for each trunk to go to the appropriate department. The same users may be members of any department.

With every Phoenix there is a worksheet to fill out. On this worksheet, you indicate what phone numbers you have coming into your company and what station phones or fax/credit card machines you have. All connectors on Phoenix are modular phone type (RJ11), so we provide adapters that allow someone to convert from wire to modular phone connectors. If you are unfamiliar with phone wiring, just call the local phone company and ask to have some “inside” wiring done. They will just bill you their hourly rate to hook up Phoenix. The worksheet will make it very quick for the installer. The installer may choose not to use the adapters and just “punch down” the connections – which is faster yet. Assume the technician will need an hour at probably $50 per hour.

Not during normal operation. You will need a computer with a network (10/100 Ethernet) to configure Phoenix. Of course, if you leave Phoenix on your company network, you gain the flexibility to make changes and do backups. The virtual console application also needs the network connection if you wish to take advantage of its vast feature set.

Yes, we have a hardware upgrade program where you pay the difference between the current list prices between the units.

Phoenix includes an automated attendant feature, which assumes the role of a receptionist by offering the caller a menu of options. Calls can be rolled to a human receptionist, if desired, without requiring a dedicated operator’s console. With our Virtual Console application, any desktop computer can serve this purpose, enabling such duties to be divided among a number of people, in accordance with the customer's preference and time of day.

Phoenix does not use a battery to keep the time during power loss because the battery would need to be replaced every 3 or so years. Instead, we use a rechargeable device that needs about 8 hours of power-on time to fully charge. Once charged, it will keep the clock running if the Phoenix power is removed for up to 10 hours. Since your phone system is a critical appliance, it should be installed with an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). A small UPS is sufficient (just like one used for a computer).