[Asterisk-Users] [OT] Centrex Question

[Gabriel Afana]

> I haven't dealt with Centrex for a long time, and one of my customers is
> being courted heavily by a Sprint salesperson.
>
> Am I not correct in assuming that each "line" of Centrex corresponds to
> an "extension" in the PBX world?

This is straight out of my "Switching to VoIP" book (sorry if there will be
mistakes in the writing...im gonna type & post...Im not an editor :-)

Centrex
Centrex is POTS enhanced with business-grade telephony features like call
conferencing, four-digit dialing, and per-call billing rather than
per-minute billing.  It was designed to curb the need for small businesses
to invest in PBX equipment in order to get modern telephony features.  A
single Centrex customer ca use many Centrex lines, collectively called a
Centrex group.  Within the group, each line can be called using four-digit
dialing instead of the usual 7-digit dialing (i.e., the caller can omit the
prefix when placing calls within her Centrex group).  Some other PBX-like
features include the ability to easily transfer calls between lines in the
same group, or enable and disable call forwarding for a given line by
dialing a special sequence of DTMF digits.  Normally, users of Centrex have
to dial an 8 or 9 at the beginning of each call that is destined for a
receiver outside their Centrext group.

Dont know if this exactly answers your question...but it seems you still
need to pay for each line/extension in a Centrext group.  Its just a way to
get PBX-like features without having to buy a PBX.  So if your customer is
only buying two Centrext lines, they will only have two lines therefore two
extensions.

Corrections anyone?

- Gabe

(ouch, my hands hurt)