Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Birth of the CentrEx Business Phone System

The CentrEx phone system is a telephony switching service where all the telecommunication equipments and other required devices are housed on a central office. This PBX-like phone system is owned, maintained and managed by the hosting provider. A hosting provider, that gives PBX system services to subscribers, can be a telephone company or a telecommunication solutions provider.

It was in the 1960s when the Engineering Department of the New York Telephone company invented the CentrEX I business phone system. The system was made as a replacement for the PBX switching systems of large corporations. The only disadvantage of the CentrEx I is that it requires the use of a separate 5XB Switch for every subscribers.

CentrEx II was later developed in 1960 by the Bell Labs. The system has the additional feature which makes it more efficient as compared to the CentrEx I. This new innovation has replaced the Step Switches on the CentrEx I with a more reliable 2-stage crossbar network CentrEx Position Link Circuit (CPXL).

In the early part of 1970, a redesigned and a much versatile CentrEx III, also known as Phase 3 CentrEx was later developed. While CentrEx II uses a 2-stage network crossbar, CentrEx III utilizes 6-wire crossbar switches in connecting with a transfer trunk and still uses the CPXL in connecting with other consoles.

In the mid-1970s CentrEx subscribers were transitioned from the 5XB switching system to the modern 1ESS switch. Various developments were considered such as the cheaper logic, storage, and the versatility of the Stored Program Control. Different manufacturers also developed similar services. Nortel for instance developed the IBN (Integrated Business Network) while RingCentral called their system the eCentrex Virtual PBX.

Today, CentrEx is already available in various service types (packaged, data and customized). This is to provide a wide variety of options to cater the different communication requirements of subscribers.

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