Fact:  your businesses is married to technology and often that marriage is not a happy one.

Tech support is like a counsellor to your IT relationship; a good one will save you a lot of drama, stress and tears.  This does not mean you have to go and search for another IT service.  Many business owners has probably at some stage thought of switching IT service company.  Is this a wise decision?  Switching service companies is not something you do rashly.

The problem t hat you will face when changing IT service is price.  They all have there own rate and some are ridiculously over priced.

On that front the advice is simple - get over it. Your doctor and plumber charge more than most peoples' hourly rates and a good tech will save you a fortune in therapist and data recovery charges. So we'll leave price to last and look at the other factors.

What does FXS and FXo mean?

FXS and FXO are the name of ports used by Analog phone lines (also known as POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service) or phones.

FXS - Foreign eXchange Subscriber interface is the port that actually delivers the analog line to the subscriber. In other words it is the ‘plug on the wall’ that delivers a dialtone, battery current and ring voltage.

FXO - Foreign eXchange Office interface is the port that receives the analog line. It is the plug on the phone or fax machine, or the plug(s) on your analog phone system. It delivers an on-hook/off-hook indication (loop closure). Since the FXO port is attached to a device, such as a fax or phone, the device is often called the ‘FXO device’.

FXO and FXS are always paired, i.e similar to a male / female plug.

Without a PBX, a phone is connected directly to the FXS port provided by a telephone company.

If you have a PBX, then you connect the lines provided by the telephone company to the PBX and then the phones to the PBX. Therefore, the PBX must have both FXO ports (to connect to the FXS ports provided by the telephone company) and FXS ports (to connect the phone or fax devices to).

FXS & FXO & VOIP