Definitions

PBX
Private Branch eXchange, a telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between enterprise users on local lines while
allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines.

Soft PBX or Server-based PBX
Telephony system with PBX functionality, implemented on an industry standard IT platform, using standardized software tools and non-proprietary hardware.

IP Telephony
A general term for the technologies that use the Internet Protocol's packet-switched connections to exchange voice, fax, and other forms
of information that have traditionally been carried over the dedicated circuit-switched connections of the public switched telephone
network (PSTN).

Centrex
Central office exchange service is a service from local telephone companies in which up-to-date phone facilities at the phone company's central office are offered to business users so that they don't need to purchase their own facilities. The Centrex service effectively partitions
part of its own centralized capabilities among its business customers. The customer is spared the expense of having to keep up with fast-moving technology changes (e.g., having to continually update their PBX infrastructure).

IP Centrex
The system used by network operators to offer their broadband customers telephony services with PBX functionality over the operator's
data networks. In a similar fashion to traditional Centrex solutions the operator "hosts" the infrastructure at a central location, thus off-
loading the need for customers to own and manage their own, premise, equipment.

Customer Center
A customerl center is a central place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an organization, usually with some
amount of computer automation. Typically, a call center has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to
screen calls and forward them to someone qualified to handle them, and to log calls.

Contact Center
Call Centers capable of handling voice together with at least one other web-centric media (such as e-mail).

IP-based Contact Center
Purely software-based contact center based on the Internet Protocol (IP), also typically including an IP- Automatic Call Distributor (ACD),
i.e. no proprietary telecom technology (Public Branch Exchange (PBX) or Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)) is needed.

Converged Communications Networks
Networks on which voice and data communications are implemented and operated in unison. These networks are often, if not always,
based on IP technology.

Agents
Call center staff that interacts with the call centers customers, clients, patients etc. Agents are sometimes referred to as Sales
Representatives, CSRs, Support Staff etc.

SIP
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft for managing the handshake procedures for beginning
and ending real-time communications between IP network end points.