Methods of Connecting Phones to CloudCo PBX

There are 4 main methods available to get your phones connected to your CloudCo Partner PBX. These include Remote STUN, the 3CX SBC software, an IPSEC VPN, and the Edgewater Edgemarc SBC devices. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages and certain options that may be beneficial to you depending upon your situation.

1.     Remote STUN

• Advantages

Remote STUN allows for you to directly connect your phones to your PBX without the need for any additional devices though they will require some configuration of devices that are already present in order to function correctly. Additionally, as of 3CX V15, Remote STUN devices such as Yealink phones can be configured using RPS so there is no longer a need to login to each device and paste a URL to provision. Once the device is added to 3CX, it is added to RPS and can be rebooted to reach out to your server for provisioning.

• Disadvantages

 Another item to take note of, a Remote STUN device will not have any encryption on the voice traffic, if someone were to intercept your traffic, they would be able to hear your conversation as the extension is open to the public network when outside the LAN.

2.     3CX SBC

• Advantages

The 3CX SBC will allow you to use plug and play provisioning. Any device plugged into the network that the SBC is on will appear as a bold item in This will be the case unless you have PBX delivers audio selected for the extension or you have record all calls selected.

• Disadvantages

You will need a dedicated Windows machine, Debian machine or Raspberry Pi on site. We would not recommend a Raspberry Pi unless using only a small number of phones. The Windows/Debian options can support a larger number of phones but this can vary depending upon how many BLF’s you may be using on the phones behind the SBC, additionally the number of phones is dependent upon the hardware being used. You could in large deployments, deploy multiple SBC devices to get around that limitation. This is a software based solution so any updates could introduce bugs that may require downtime to upgrade to a newer build of the software, on the same note that also means you will have to deal with Windows/Debian updates that may require downtime to perform the according updates.

3.     IPSEC VPN

• Advantages

An IPSEC VPN will allow you to be connected to the network that your hosted PBX is located at. If your existing networking equipment on site supports VPN connections you will have no need to get additional hardware on your end. This also removes the need to rely on software such as the  Finally, you will be able to encrypt traffic going across the VPN limiting access from the public network. You would need to allow access to the extensions outside the LAN.

• Disadvantages

You will need to have management access to the networking equipment on site as you will need to be able to establish an IPSEC VPN connection back to us. In addition, additional fees may be present as the VPN setup will require an additional server to run the router software on the hosted side. Finally, if you do not already have the hardware to support an IPSEC VPN connection on site, you will need to source this hardware

4.     Edgewater Edgemarc SBC

• Advantages

An Edgewater Edgemarc SBC device can also be deployed to utilize with remote devices. An Edgemarc would allow you to register all devices to the Edgemarc which would then register back to your hosted server. In addition, depending upon the model chosen, PSTN access can be implemented to allow a high availability scenario, so in the case that your connection to your hosted server goes down, your phones will still be able to call out via a local analog or PRI backup line connected to the Edgemarc. Depending upon the Edgemarc chosen, WAN link redundancy may also be an option, so if your primary WAN link fails the device can switch over to another connection to restore connectivity. In addition to this, SIP survivability is also available so in the case that a WAN link fails altogether, phones will stay registered to the Edgemarc, allowing for local extension to extension calls. The Edgemarc can also provide MOS scoring to let you know the quality of calls going through it to help pinpoint poor quality calls. QoS can also be setup to ensure the proper bandwidth is in place for your voip devices in times of heavy usage, by throttling data if more is needed for proper VOIP calls.

• Disadvantages

Currently, this would require some manual configuration of devices that are going to be behind the SBC, as well as configuration of the Edgemarc itself to communicate with your server. Additionally, you would need to deploy an Edgemarc at each location that would be connecting back to your hosted server.