Business Phone System Glossary
Plain-English definitions of every telecom term you'll encounter when choosing a phone system.
A
- Auto-Attendant
- An automated phone menu that greets callers and routes them to the right department or person without a human receptionist. Also known as a virtual receptionist or IVR.Learn more
B
- BYO Device (BYOD)
- A policy that lets employees use their own smartphones, laptops, or tablets with the business phone system via softphone apps.Learn more
C
- Call Centre
- A centralised department that handles large volumes of inbound and/or outbound calls. Modern cloud contact centres add omnichannel support (chat, email, SMS).Learn more
- Call Forwarding
- A feature that redirects incoming calls to another number — a mobile, another extension, or an external line — so calls are never missed.
- Call Queue
- A system that places callers in a virtual line when all agents are busy, often with hold music or estimated wait time announcements.Learn more
- Cloud PBX
- A phone system hosted in the cloud rather than on physical hardware in your office. All features, upgrades, and maintenance are handled by the provider.Learn more
- CRM Integration
- Connecting your phone system to your Customer Relationship Management software (e.g. Salesforce, HubSpot) for click-to-call, call logging, and screen pops.
D
- DID (Direct Inward Dialling)
- A service that assigns individual phone numbers to each user or department without needing separate physical lines.
E
- E.164
- The international telephone numbering standard (e.g. +61 2 1234 5678). Cloud phone systems use E.164 for global number portability.
- Extension
- An internal short number (e.g. 101, 202) assigned to a user or department within the phone system for internal dialling.
F
- Failover
- Automatic rerouting of calls to a backup system or mobile number if the primary system goes down, ensuring business continuity.
H
- Hot-Desking
- A feature that lets users log into any desk phone with their profile, so they keep their extension, voicemail, and settings at any desk.Learn more
I
- IVR (Interactive Voice Response)
- A phone menu system that lets callers interact using voice or keypad inputs to route themselves — 'Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Support.'Learn more
L
- Latency
- The delay between speaking and the other person hearing your voice. For VoIP, latency under 150ms is considered acceptable for natural conversation.
M
- MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication)
- A security feature requiring two or more verification steps to access the phone system, such as a password plus an SMS code.
N
- NBN (National Broadband Network)
- Australia's national wholesale broadband network. Most cloud phone systems work over NBN connections with no special hardware.Learn more
- Number Porting
- The process of transferring your existing phone numbers from one provider to another. In Australia, porting typically takes 1–5 business days.
P
- PABX / PBX
- Private Automatic Branch Exchange — a traditional on-premises phone system. Cloud PBX replaces this with a hosted solution, eliminating hardware maintenance.Learn more
Q
- QoS (Quality of Service)
- Network settings that prioritise voice traffic over other data to ensure clear, uninterrupted calls. Important for offices with heavy internet usage.
R
- Ring Group
- A group of extensions that ring simultaneously or in sequence when a call comes in — useful for sales teams or support desks.
S
- SIP Trunking
- A method of delivering phone service over the internet to an existing on-premises PBX. It replaces traditional ISDN lines with a VoIP connection.Learn more
- Softphone
- A software application that turns a computer, tablet, or smartphone into a phone. It connects to the business phone system via the internet.Learn more
U
- UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service)
- A cloud-based platform that combines voice calls, video conferencing, team messaging, and file sharing into a single subscription.Learn more
- Unified Communications
- The integration of multiple communication tools — voice, video, messaging, file sharing — into a single platform for seamless collaboration.
V
- VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
- Technology that transmits voice calls over the internet instead of traditional phone lines. The foundation of all modern cloud phone systems.Learn more
- Voicemail-to-Email
- A feature that transcribes voicemail messages and sends them to your email inbox as text and/or an audio attachment.
W
- WebRTC
- Web Real-Time Communication — a browser-based technology that enables voice and video calls directly from a web browser without plugins.