As companies grow, so do their technology and communication needs. It is crucial to a company’s success that they choose a solution or solutions that enables them to be as productive as possible with the least amount of hassle. As far as business communications go, a PRI line is something that a company with 10 or more employees should consider. You’re probably wondering what a PRI line is. A PRI line is a form of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) which is the telecommunication standard that allows traditional phone lines to carry both voice & data traffic.
A PRI Circuit is a single cable (usually a T1) coming into your telecom room that can carry voice and data transmissions.
A T1 line consists of 24 channels. A PRI uses 23 of these channels (called b channels) to carry the voice calls and 1 channel (called a d channel) for signaling or communicating between a PBX and the voice network. This is commonly referred to as a (23b + 1d).
Each of the 23 channels can hold one phone call at a time, for a maximum of 23 concurrent phone calls.
Advantages of using a PRI line
- Flexibility: If you have a PBX, you can start with a low number of channels and easily increase the number of channels without the need to install another telephone line.
- Multiple Capablilites: PRI Lines can be used for voice & data connectivity, faxing, and video conferencing all at the same time.
- Direct Inward Dialing: It’s not uncommon for businesses to have 50 DID numbers on 1 PRI Circuit. In other words, your business can have 50 different phone numbers, 1 for each employee of the company, all coming across a single PRI Circuit. As long as you don’t have more than 23 people on a call at the same time, this is a perfectly viable option.
- Reduce Costs: Eliminate the need to purchase and manage separate voice & data circuits.
A PRI enables companies to easily route callers to different employees or departments such as sales, support, voice menus, and voicemails. This kind of a task would be very difficult to accomplish using a traditional analog line. Whereas with a PRI you can have each phone number with it’s own set of rules and send callers through any open trunk available on the PRI.
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