FreePBX Cost Savings Pt. 4 - The DISA and the Callback.

Another reason why I love my PBX.

Fourth Reason - DISA. Reading this, you probably said ‘Huh?’ It stands for ‘Direct Inward System Access‘ Again, you probably said ‘Huh?’

Basically this means I can dial into the house and make calls from there. What this allows is when I am at work (remember, I work in education) and since all teachers are thieves they don’t allow us to dial any number from the phones starting with a ‘1′ since that would incur a long distance charge. By the way, that includes ‘1-800′ numbers since they only went so far as to check for the ‘1′ Face it, we all need to get some personal business done on lunch, and sometimes we need to make some phone calls to get work done. Sometimes I need to call a textbook company and I don’t want to waste the 10 minute return trip the office and back (its a big school) where you can make long distance calls if someone is there who ‘knows the long distance code’ As I’ve mentioned before, teacher’s time is easier to waste since their time is paid for, but a phone call is not. Anyhow, I digress.

Now I can call my house, punch in my code and get a dial tone at home. Then I can make long distance calls from the school phone that are routed through my house. The same goes for my cell phone. Rather than pay 30¢ a minute for long distance on my cell phone (isn’t that price REALLY outdated?) I dial the house and phone out from there. Just calculate how much this costs per year!

The Callback.
Kind of like the DISA. Suppose you have a cell phone plan that gives you 100 outgoing minutes, but unlimited incoming calls. Some countries - like Australia - have all incoming calls for free. I could pick up my cell phone, make a less than 1 minute call to my house, and have my house immediately phone my cell phone back. When I answer my cell call, I have my home dial tone!

As far as my cell phone company is concerned, it is an incoming call and is free. I can call long distance, all billed to my home phone (wait, I have flat rate long distance from home, so no extra charge).

Yes, I *do* set up these type of systems for home and small business.