The following table lists terms and concepts used to describe the Barracuda Phone System functions and features:
Term | Description |
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Telephone System | A telephone system is a server for telephones. It allows the communication connections between hard, soft, and IP phones, the Internet, and traditional phone lines. Traditionally, telephone systems, also called PBXs (Private Branch Exchanges), connected phone lines provided by telephone companies through traditional lines to phones: actual hardware used to receive and make calls. The Barracuda Phone System is a modern phone system allowing the expansion from this traditional model to include connections over the Internet. It allows for easy configuration of the system over the Internet and connection through the Internet to non-traditional phones such as soft phones and IP phone. |
Phone Lines | Phone Lines are the traditional lines provided by telephone companies or telephone service providers which provide dial tone. Phone lines can be connected to the Barracuda Phone System by analog ports, standard RJ14 four conductor jacks, or digital ports, which are PRI ports using standard eight conductor RJ45 jacks. Additional voice connections can be provided through the Internet, with service providers supplying accounts to establish media streams for voice or video connections using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). |
Phones: Hard/Soft/IP | A telephone is a device which receives and transmits the voice connection between a user and another user or a system resource, such as voice messaging. Phones can establish connections via traditional phone lines (POTS lines) or through Internet connections (LAN or WAN). Hard phones are the traditional telephone hardware that allows direct connection through POTS ("Plain Old Telephone Service") lines to the phone network. Soft phones are implemented through software on a computer, where the computer acts as your telephone, connected through the Internet to the phone network. IP Phones are hardware devices, resembling a traditional telephone, which connect to the Internet and provide the needed subset of computing functionality (connection to the Internet, display of caller information, function “buttons”, etc.). The voice connection feels as though on a traditional phone, though the connection is actually made over the Internet or LAN. |
Provisioning Phones | The process of assigning the phone to the Barracuda Phone System. The phone is assigned an extension number, receives firmware updates, and has all needed options configured. |
An extension is the final destination of a routed call. It may be a phone or a system resource such as a queue, conference, voice mailbox, or automated attendant. For the purposes of Barracuda Phone System documentation, an extension number, the number dialed to reach an extension, and the extension itself, are interchangeable terms. | |
Grouping Users | Grouping users allows assigning an extension number to be associated to all of the grouped users. While users in a group still have their own unique extension numbers, all phones of users in the group ring when the group extension number is dialed. This is a simple way to alert multiple users of incoming calls of common interest. The group association also allows establishment of a group call recording policy, extension, roles, and outbound caller ID. |
Policies | Policies allow setting a default configuration for a group of users. For example, policies can be established for collection of data records for a group of users.The group policy can be over-ridden by individual user settings. |