Many have asked us which is the most economical way of having a PBX without sacrificing quality and can handle a good number of calls.
The team at VitalPBX has invested countless hours in development to be able to port the best PBX software possible. VitalPBX 4 being based on Debian 11 (Bullseye) allows us to install VitalPBX on multiple architectures, ARM being one among them. Throughout our example, we are using a Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB of RAM.
To build our new low budget PBX we recommend the https://www.canakit.com/ website, and purchase the following:
Investment Total: USD 93.98
Feel free to search for variants of these items online, as prices and availability may vary. You may find other power supply or case options that fit your budget better.
Once we have all the components, we can proceed to put the items together. As an alternative option, given the availability of Raspberry Pi 4 units, you can choose the Raspberry Pi 400 Computer, https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-400.html.
In the end, you will have a system with the following specs:
For more technical information on the CPU, you can visit the following link, https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications/.
We will now proceed to install VitalPBX on our micro-SD card, by doing the following steps:
The option to configure WLAN is optional, we don’t recommend it, as the PBX will work better under the gigabit ethernet connection.
sudo su
wget https://repo.vitalpbx.com/vitalpbx/v4/apt/install_vpbx4.sh
chmod +x install_vpbx4.sh
./install_vpbx4.sh
We wait for a couple of minutes for the script to finish the installation, and we can then enter the IP address on our browser and proceed to use VitalPBX 4 on a Raspberry Pi.
Open /etc/dhcpcd.conf for editing in nano.
nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf
Replace the comments in brackets in the box below with the correct information. Interface will be either wlan0 for Wi-Fi or eth0 for Ethernet.
interface [INTERFACE]
static_routers=[ROUTER IP]
static domain_name_servers=[DNS IP]
static ip_address=[STATIC IP ADDRESS YOU WANT]/24
In our case, it looked like this.
interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.10.23/24
static routers=192.168.10.1
static domain_name_servers=8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4 fd51:42f8:caae:d92e::1
Now we ask ourselves, “How many concurrent calls is it possible to handle on a small low budget server?”
In tests we made in our lab, we were able to handle up to 100 concurrent calls including call recording turned on. This means that with this server we can handle from 500 to 1,000 extensions.
Here is a video we made from the test running.
You can try the stress test yourself as well following this article we wrote explaining our script, https://vitalpbx.com/blog/concurrent-call-capacity-vitalpbx/
As always, the VitalPBX team is always looking for economical solutions with high quality for our community.
The VitalPBX team is thrilled to announce the rollout of VitalPBX 4.1 R1, a significant update that brings cutting-edge features and improvements to your communication
PBX System Recognized for Industry Innovation Miami, Florida, 02/27/24 — VitalPBX announced today that TMC, a global, integrated media company, has named VitalPBX Unified Communications
Introduction The Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, has been a fundamental pillar in business communication for decades. As technology has advanced, so have the capabilities
VitalPBX provides a robust and scalable platform, which will allow you to manage your PBX in an easy and intuitive way.