Mac User - Review of Robson PBX

Mac User - May 2001

If you're running a small business, you'll recognise the importance of managing your communications - in other words, how you deal with phone calls. You want callers to feel that you're a professional outfit (even if you're two men and a dog in a garage), and you don't want to miss any calls. But for most small businesses installing a PBX (private branch exchange) for routing calls and paying a receptionist to handle things is simply out of the question. And that's where the Robson Private Branch Exchange steps in.

The Robson is, effectively, a 'PBX in a box'. It sits between your incoming trunk connection and your individual extensions, and fields and routes calls as required. It can work with one or two separate trunk lines, so you can, for instance, have both a work line and a home line managed by Robson. From that point on what else it does is entirely down to how you decide to set it up.

It can answer calls coming through on one or both trunk lines, and present a greeting (either the built-in one or your own recording) for each line that tells people what to do next. You might tell people which extension to dial for specific people, redirect certain calls to voicemail or other numbers, and so on. Incoming faxes are recognised automatically and routed to the extension you nominate as the fax line, so you should never hear those annoying fax tones again.

The Robson handles up to four physical, 'real' extensions, but it can also manage four more virtual extensions, with calls to those lines being redirected to a real line or given a custom message. This should be just the ticket for those that want to give the impression of a larger company.

Extensions manager

Voice mail is, of course, part of the package. Each extension has its own voice mailbox for messages, and can be checked from the extension or directly from the Robson.

Internal extension calls are managed by intelligent number recognition. When a number matching an extension is dialled internally, the Robson waits for a brief pause, then rings that extension. However, if more numbers are dialled, the Robson treats it as an outgoing telephone call. This means that annoying problem of having to dial '9' to get an outside line is avoided altogether.

You can also use a second trunk line to divert calls to other numbers entirely, so you can receive calls directly wherever you might be. A separate Robson cellphone transceiver or mobile docking module cuts the cost of routing calls to mobiles, as long as you use the same network. This can be invaluable where there's no second line, or where you need to be contacted away from your desk without fail.

Robson's device uses caller line identifier (CLI) to recognise individual callers and, if you store numbers beforehand, it can announce the caller to you privately, allowing you to accept the call, route it to a specific line, send it to voicemail or reject it.

If the caller's number has been withheld, as is common with nuisance calls and telesales companies, Robson can give the caller a stern talking to about doing this, send the caller to voicemail, or reject the call out of hand. However, it's also smart enough to let you provide a passcode for family and colleagues who might use systems that don't send CLI numbers.

Line dancing

The Robson box connects directly to virtually any kind of telecoms solution, from ordinary phone lines to mobile transceivers and docking stations, and works in tandem with ISDN and ADSL lines without fuss. If you also connect the Robson to a Mac, things get even more interesting. As well as being able to set it up with the benefit of a visual interface (as opposed to walking through audio prompts from a handset), you can obtain call logs for the last 50 calls. Where CLI is available, you can see full information about the callers.

The Mac software has an edge over the PC version: it can save different complete configurations to disk and load them in at will. It's also AppleScriptable, so you can have different settings for work hours during the week, weekends, evenings and night-time, each with their own sets of messages,that can be switched on and off automatically. At present Robson doesn't connect via USB, but if you want to use an iMac for this task, you can use a regular USB-to-serial adaptor.

Robson is a next-generation PBX system - without the hassles normally associated with such systems - that works intelligently without a computer, and even more so with one.

It's overkill for basic home setups, having been designed more for handling different extensions and multiple-user voicemail. But if you're ready to graduate from the answering machine and missed calls scenario, Robson is not only the business, it appears to be the only sensible game in town.

NEEDS: Telephone connection, one or more extensions, serial port

Keith Martin