Hosted PBX Guide

Onebox Executive. While perhaps a bit overspecialized, this is the only program we've seen specifically designed for a single person. It doesn't really provide any different features than any of the other plans, it just tweaks and scales them for the individual. Less focus on call distribution and more on handling the call on your behalf, sending it wherever you are, and so on.

International Service. While most of the hosted PBX crews can handle calls to or from overseas, there's usually some manner of large additional fee and occasionally connection problems. Onebox has services specifically tailored to other nations, providing assurances of solid connections and good rates through most of Europe and Hong Kong. While it would have been nice to include more countries, this is presumably still being worked on.

Active Minutes. Onebox doesn't charge customers for time callers spend on hold or in voicemail. It's a nice touch that ultimately means you use a few less minutes per month than others. But since the price packages all include a block of 2000 minutes, you probably won't be worrying about this with Onebox either way.

Expensive. While Onebox is a quality provider with almost all the services one could ask for from a hosted PBX, they're also in the top cost bracket. That said, they're at least straightforward about the pricing from what I can tell to this point. While you'll be paying more than with some of the competitors, at least you know how much you're paying, and for what. They do tend to hide the actual number of minutes included in the "no usage fees" plans, but there are enough minutes for most smaller companies.

Awkward. From the intelligence I've been able to gather so far, Onebox has one of the more difficult, clunky user interfaces. I'll have a lot more detail on this after signing up and using their service for a while myself, but that's what I've heard so far. From looking at their website, this seems believable - it has a mildly difficult to navigate design as well.

Live Receptionist. A new feature not common to most PBX systems, Onebox is now providing live people to answer the phones for your business instead of a recorded virtual receptionist. They've evidently got some program going to keep track of businesses, schedules, and appointments. And they handle routing calls to the correct extension in person. It's like having a secretary for the company, but without having to employ a secretary. Why is this odd instead of good? Because it costs two and a half dollars per minute. Or you can buy a package bringing it down to the ‘low' price of $1.25 per minute for 250 minutes. Sure, the receptionist doesn't answer the call, so there's relatively small amount of the phone time being spent on this. But let's just say it takes six seconds per call (this is generous - six seconds is about the fastest you can expect while still hitting any level of courtesy). Six seconds is 10% of a minute, to 12.5 cents per call on the largest block plan. This is probably a good deal for somebody out there.