A PBX or Business Phone System merely consolidates all your incoming lines into one control unit and provides more users to access this pool of phone lines via phone extensions for each employee.

A common interpretation for a phone line is that it is a line going into each phone. For example I just went in to meet an existing client who put in a request to “add more phone lines”.

After checking the port capacity on the phone system I informed the client that they cannot add more phone lines.

“That is not true, we were told we could add upto 8 “phone lines” and currently we are having only 5 “phones”  in all. We need two more “lines” added in this office for new employees.”  The visibly annoyed client bursted out.

Notice how I have put quote around the words  I would like to highlight.

In the telephony language, what the client actually needs is New Extensions , or new phone extensions, NOT lines or phone lines.

We refer to lines as incoming lines from the telephone company. If you need more phones hooked up for the office, then you should be asking for more extensions.

Simply asking for “more lines for the office” would quite possibly lead to a misunderstanding, causing your PBX system provider or interconnect to get the phone company to add more lines for your office. Obviously this would increase your capacity to receive or make more calls outside and you would be paying an increased monthly charge to your phone company.

But if thats not your requirement, and you simply need more phones for your new employees or you need to move your existing phone sets to new locations and need new wires pulled in, then you had better ask for “more extensions”.

I have personally been in situations when the customer has ordered “new lines” only to find out later that they meant “new extensions”.  And it is an expensive mistake, because firstly you will pay your phone company to bring the new lines into your office, you will also pay your PBX or phone system provider to come in to hook up your “new” phone lines and then pay the pbx provider once again to remove those “new lines” and install “new extensions” for additional phones in the office. Not to mention the loss of time and productivity.

Phone extensions are often referred as phone lines by customers who are not aware of the difference, and if your friendly pbx phone system provider does not understand you correctly, then you are in for some major frustration!!

And don’t blame the pbx provider for that.

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