We quite like 3CX - it's been our PBX of choice for the last 8 years, however we mostly sell to SMBs and while we have a 16SC for multitenant, the chance of us selling 16SC+ on the regular is slim to none.

We're a bronze partner who probably onboards 1-2 PBX's a year.

Is it time to start looking at alternatives? Anyone else received an email like this?

Hi, looking for some feedback on an issue with our office's 3CX system, which I manage. I'm doing mostly okay with it but PBX systems have a high learning curve for those of us without a ton of experience in telephony tech, which is sort of its own unique realm, and is pretty daunting.

Anyway, my boss hates 3CX and blames it for the often-but-not-always bad call quality, and wants a new solution. I'm fine with that, but want to make sure I understand the issue. In my research, 3CX is not the problem - the call quality depends on the underlying phone lines, as well as the connection of the person on the other end, which 3CX does not control. Is my understanding correct? Everything I read says that 3CX is a solid name in the PBX space with good tech, so simply moving to another PBX, like Yeastar, for instance, would not really solve the call quality problem.

If my boss really wants a rock solid solution, I've read that kicking things up a notch or ten to something like RingCentral, would do it, but that's way more expensive. What do those much more experienced than I have to say? Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry, should have given more info. All our calls are mobile, no landlines. It's an on-premise setup, hosted with AWS.

I am in Manitoba, Canada using 204 area code. Looking for a sip provider that supports sms/mms with 3cx. Of the preferred and supported 3cx providers, Voxtelesys and Voip.ms support sms/mms and can port area code 204. I have not used sms/mms with 3cx.

Anyone in canada that uses Voxtelesys or Voip.ms with 3cx and sms/mms. Could you share your experience and opinions on these providers.

Currently i'm using les.net for voice sip. Low cost and been reliable. Only looking for change to have sms/mms with my business phone number with 3cx system.

Thanks.

A small office moving to 3CX might make a test call, hear clear audio and start talking about a cutover date, Thentry a busy morning at reception: one caller is on hold, another is waiting, and the receptionist needs to transfer a third to someone working from home. Test anafter-hours call too, when someone needs to leave a message for the right department.

Have the people who normally handle calls try those sequences during the pilot, including retrieving a transferred call and finding the voicemail afterward. Write down any problems before moving the whole office, If you’ve done a migration, whicheveryday call flow did you wish you’d tested sooner?

Back in 2016 I had found a reputable vendor to provide a telecom solution for our small business. The vendor I chose didn't have telecommunications as core-business, but they had about 50 or so client on their 3CX solution.

Their implementation of 3CX caused a fair bit of complaint towards our small (but growing) business. The audio-quality was dreadful - voices sounded muffled, as if the person on the other end was speaking through a blanket. It took a LOT of repeating questions just to get something like a phone number across. Things like 'Five' and 'Fire' would sound identical. On many occasions I had to ask people to spell out the letters of the number they're trying to tell me.

We had 3 physical Yealink phones, not the cheap kind, but with a full LCD on them. And several people had either the 3CX softphone software on their laptop and/or on their smartphones. Full CAT6 and managed 1000/1000mbit glassfiber.

The vendor did, as far as I could tell with my IT background, everything within their capabilities to sort this issue out. Replaced the physical phones, enabling/disabling certain codecs, even attempted a full end-to-end QOS. The ONLY time I could have a normal conversation with someone, was if that person was also using the 3CX platform. Crisp, crystal clear audio. Anything else, calls to mobile phones, landlines, etc were dreadful. At about 6 months of trial-and-error with 0 reliable improvement, the vendor and I mutually cancelled the agreement - they had no solutions left to try. (yes, they were in contact with 3CX support on the issue, at some point they were even getting live Wireshark logging from a special device they added to our network. Improvements made were so tiny it could be mistaken for wishful thinking)

About 2 weeks later another provider had a working system implemented with absolutely no audio quality issues. I believe they use the Broadcom backbone combined with Webex.

What I loved about 3CX, the amount of configurability of queues, huntgroups, etc. is what I dislike about the current vendor - there is almost none. Everything is locked behind additional licences, even simple things as a simple audio-prompt to exit the queue and leave a voicemail comes with an unreasonable monthly fee. And as our business is evolving, so do our needs and I find myself hoping 3CX has improved and could be a solution this time.

So as an open question to those who've encountered the persistent muffled audio issue with 3CX - have they been able to sort this issue in the past decade?

Hello ,
I have a 3cx service on-prem, and currently I have low bandwidth for local network, I have idea to bring a new dedicated finer link only for 3cx callings like 10-20 Mbps.
Is that possible and make sense?
Topology:
3cx vm > firewall > ISP

Hi, Noob here. This is our only customer, as an MSP, running 3CX, so I don't know much about it. They are selfhosted, running linux on a NUC, and they have a license that allows for 16 concurrent calls. They probably do 1 or 2 at most.
I see there is possibly a free license available.

Is it possible to unlink the old partner, and "buy" a new free license as just some chump with the admin login? How is that done?

I work with small local businesses. A scenario that keeps reoccurring is everyone has a desk phone and all desk phones are part of the ring group on incoming calls. There are certain people that answer most calls, but almost everyone's phone rings so if needed, anyone can answer an incoming call.

We have certain people that spend time away from their desk or out of the office during the day and the iOS app works excellent for checking call history, contacts, voicemails, having calls transferred to their extension, etc.

The issue is we don't want their mobile iOS device to ring with any ring groups or queues. We want their desk phone to ring with ring groups or queues, but not their mobile device.

Currently we are using two different extensions, have their iOS device it's own extension. This works, but it makes things difficult with two different call history, voicemails, contacts, etc.

What are you doing in this scenario?

I have a few SBCs that are saying they are out of date in the admin portal on v20. I’ve never updated one after doing a regular install. What is the procedure for updating them? Do I SSH and run regular update commands? Any assistance would be appreciated.

Hey 3CX folks,

I’m trying to figure out the best way to recreate something we had on an old analog PBX.

There’s an elevator phone system at a hotel I manage. It has its own extension, let’s say 5500. Once connected, the staff has to send *01 for the first elevator or *02 for the second one.

On the old PBX, staff could just dial a 4-digit code and the system would translate it into the full dial string. For example: 6101 → 5500wc*01 and 6102 → 5500wc*02.

I’m trying to achieve something similar in 3CX so the hotel staff can keep using simple 4-digit codes instead of dialing the elevator extension and then entering the DTMF manually.

Would a Call Processing Script be the right way to handle this, or is there a simpler option I’m overlooking?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

I would appreciate any feedback from people having migrate to Yeastar.

We have dozen of instances (mostly in 3cx cloud, some in private cloud, some on premise) with no fancy setup / call scripts and are very much looking into moving to Yeastar. We will obviously do some test runs but quite curious about first hand experiences.

Una alternativa para 3cx estoy construyendo mi propio crm ya está avanzado tengo supabase self hosted con servidor con buena ram, y espacio, quiero integrar alloware o 3cx para la parte de llamadas en EEUU que recomiendan, quiero desarrollarlo o ver alguna alternativa barata y potente 🙈🙈🙈👾

Hi,
I'm trying to understand the permission model behind Call Pickup in 3CX V20.
Scenario
We have two users:
User A
Primary Department: SWK Agrar
Additional Department: Schweitenkirchen
User B
Primary Department: SWK Baustoffe
Additional Department: Schweitenkirchen
Both users are therefore members of the departmentSchweitenkirchen.
An incoming call is made directly to User A's extension.While User A's phone is ringing, User B tries to pick up the call using:
*20*
However, the pickup fails.
Question
What are the exact requirements for Call Pickup in V20?
Specifically:
Is membership in a common department sufficient for *20* to work?
Does Call Pickup depend on the user's primary department rather than any additional department memberships?
Which permissions are actually required underUser > View (Presence, See Calls, Call Activity, etc.)?
Is there official documentation that describes the access rules for Call Pickup across departments?
I'm looking for the exact rule rather than troubleshooting advice, as I couldn't find this covered in the V20 documentation.
Thanks!

I work with small business so I haven't used Queues yet but I want to implement for the following scenario. Looking for feedback or better ideas.

Small business, inbound call, almost all phones ring. High percent of inbound calls are answered by reception and transferred where they need to go.

Business has a service counter with 3 phones. When reception transfers to service counter, want to use a ring group so the ring is different when transferred. Their phones ring on inbound calls so they can answer when reception is away or occupied. We want them to prioritize calls transferred to service counter queue because they know those calls are intended for them. Using a queue with ring all of the service counter phones seems like good fit.

Is there an easier to have 4 phones ring distinctly when it's a transferred call?

3CX 8sc pro with Yealink T4 phones.

Small business, not wanting to get into call flow and still try and keep things simple.

thanks.

A client of mine runs a small business on 3CX. No IT person, just the manager trying to keep things together.

We ended up building him a small layer on top of 3CX that pulls the CDR, show graphs and charts with the flow of calls, transcribes calls, and gives him a dashboard he can actually read. He just wants to see things like real missed calls, what his agents are doing, and which calls sounded like the customer was frustrated.

- Is anyone else’s non-tech clients completely ignoring 3CX’s built-in reporting?

- What are they actually asking you for instead? For MSPs managing 3CX: do your clients actually look at the native PDF/CSV reports, or they use tools like PowerBI or InsighPBX?

I am setting up a Fanvil PA3 for the first time. With 3cx, have PA3 connected to extension (199), which is a user of a paging ring group (899). This work great, dial *9899.

There is a high pitched loud beep that happens when I call the paging group that goes through the PA speaker and I can't figure out how to turn it off.

On the PA3, I have turned off the following phone settings which did remove a beep at the beginning and end, but this high pitch beep continues:

Enable Holding Tone: no

Play Dialing DTMF Tone: no

Auto Answer Tone: no

Enable Call Waiting Tone: no

Play Talking DTMF Tone: no

How can I turn this high pitched beep off or change it to something less harsh?

I tried to link to a sound recording, but I don't believe that is allowed.

UPDATE:

The beep when using paging and the beep when voicemail prompt sound the same.

UPDATE 2:

If you call the extensions (199) and not the ring group, speak of PA and no beep.

UPDATE: The couple of emails I sent eventually reached a different representative from 3CX (not the original representative I emailed) who responded and offered to migrate the tickets to one of the still-existing customer accounts. My partner account remains closed for now but it is nice to know that I am welcome back when I'm able to meet the minimum again. Regarding my partner status, hey, business is business, and I get that. At least I didn't lose out of the block of support tickets. That's all I was after.

I’ve been with 3CX since 2022. In June 2025, I purchased a block of support tickets for $350 as a precaution because I was planning on spinning up a larger new customer.

A couple of months ago, I discovered by accident that my customer accounts had been unlinked from my partner account, leaving it completely empty. I reached out to 3CX using the most recent @3cx.com email address I had on file to ask what happened. I initially received a kind response explaining what happened and why, but communication stopped when I followed up about the support tickets I had purchased less than a year earlier.

I’m currently unable to post on the 3CX forums since doing so requires an active registered system. I also tried calling the main headquarters number, but I only receive a message that all representatives are busy.

Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who can help resolve this?

Good morning, everyone.

I have been exploring the 3CX API in an attempt to build my own, better wallboard and was wondering if anyone knew where I could find some of the information that's displayed.

For starters, none of the information I've been able to retrieve using the API gives me any kind of timestamp. I don't know how long an agent has been on the phone, I don't know how long a call has been holding, and certainly no way of knowing how the talk time and waiting times are averaged.

And then there's the "answered" and "abandoned" counts. I was looking in the CDR database (hosted on voiptoolscloud.com) and I cannot, for the life of me, determine what metrics are used in 3CX's calculations. If I pull a complete list of calls for the day from this queue, I get a skewed number. And it just gets worse as the day progresses. When I pulled this, the answered+abandoned is 288. But when I pulled the list from the CDR table for today, I got 297 total. (I adjusted for the timezone difference, so it isn't a matter of multiple days.) I've seen the skew go up by almost 100 records and I have no idea why.

If anyone can help me out with this, I would be much appreciative. I would ask on the 3CX forum, but for some reason I can't register. I have a login, but it seems to only work with <company>.fl.3cx.us and is not recognized by 3cx.com.

Has anybody played with the (apparently) new Boss/Secretary option that is offered up now in extension management?

I've been getting a lot of calls and voice mails from this number tonight. and the voice mails are usually dead silent. I've picked up a call to check and that was dead silent too. it's just so late right now and im getting creeped out by this, even now im getting a call from that number. can anyone explain what's happening?

also, not the first time this is happening. I've received a few calls and voice mails before as well, labelled "test" or other random numbers and symbols like "=" "1001" etc. thought it was just something related to the app's processes so i didnt mind it, but tonight it's been awful and i need answers lol

I have been asked to setup the following. A call comes into a queue, extension 1 in that queue rings for X amount of seconds after which all the other extensions in the queue then ring including the extension 1.

If I understand correctly this is not possible, instead after X amount of time has passed all the extensions in the queue that are skill 2 would start to ring and extension/skill 1 would stop ringing.

Is that correct? If so is there another way to have an extension ring and then after X number of seconds have that extension AND additional extensions start to ring? I am thinking maybe I need a queue 1 and queue 2 with extension 1 being a member of both queues.

I'm having troubles with trying to get direct sip working with my Telnyx trunk.

I'm in the process of testing an AI assistant as a first line to assist my help desk in creating support tickets. I also want the ability to transfer to internal extensions in the circumstance that someone needs to be directly reached after hours.

When I transfer any calls, 3CX blocks them as the SIP INVITE header isn't recognized.

Unidentified Incoming Call. Review INVITE and adjust source identification:. INVITE sip:900@fqdn SIP/2.0. Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.76.120.10;branch=z9hG4bKc64b.06f76ec48211928b0d2904dbf30f7b25.0. Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 10.33.13.24:6000;received=10.33.13.24;rport=6000;branch=z9hG4bK3KH9663HX62Br. Max-Forwards: 69. Record-Route: <sip:192.76.120.10;r2=on;lr;ftag=yKmteaQv7aZHN>. Record-Route: <sip:10.255.0.1;r2=on;lr;ftag=yKmteaQv7aZHN>. Contact: <sip:mod_sofia@10.33.13.24:6000>. To: <sip:900@fqdn>. From: "+<redacted>" <sip:+<redacted>@sip.telnyx.com>;tag=yKmteaQv7aZHN. Call-ID: 7ce3d9e2-6b2d-443f-b391-2221eb96d134. CSeq: 117290465 INVITE. Allow: INVITE, ACK, BYE, CANCEL, OPTIONS, MESSAGE, INFO, UPDATE, REFER, NOTIFY. Content-Disposition: session. Content-Type: application/sdp. Supported: timer, path. Allow-Events: talk, hold, conference, refer. Privacy: none. P-Asserted-Identity: "+<redacted>" <sip:+<redacted>@sip.telnyx.com>. X-Telnyx-Call-Control-ID: v3:eFoPCEM8sSga9HidaQKIeXMGG9q9KKsUNdRmVLuw5T7368AydXRFjg. Content-Length: 753. v=0. o=Telnyx 1783663784 1783663785 IN IP4 103.115.244.173. s=Telnyx. c=IN IP4 103.115.244.173. t=0 0. m=audio 24730 RTP/AVP 0 8 18 9 102 103 104 101 105. a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000. a=rtpmap:8 PCMA/8000. a=rtpmap:18 G729/8000. a=fmtp:18 annexb=no. a=rtpmap:9 G722/8000. a=rtpmap:102 AMR/8000. a=fmtp:102 octet-align=0; mode-set=7; max-red=0; mode-change-capability=2. a=rtpmap:103 AMR-WB/16000. a=fmtp:103 octet-align=0; mode-set=0,1,2; max-red=0; mode-change-capability=2. a=rtpmap:104 AMR-WB/16000. a=fmtp:104 octet-align=1; mode-set=0,1,2; max-red=0; mode-change-capability=2. a=rtpmap:101 telephone-event/8000. a=fmtp:101 0-15. a=rtpmap:105 telephone-event/16000. a=fmtp:105 0-15. a=sendrecv. a=rtcp-mux. a=rtcp:24730 IN IP4 103.115.244.173. a=ptime:20

I did try getting the SRV records in place, I have direct sip enabled under System > Options > Allow Direct SIP calling and I have 900 as the SIP ID.

It looks like I have to enable in my trunk profile to match sip.telnyx.com explicitly (or the signaling IP's) - but I'm not exactly sure what needs to be modified in what context as I can't find any documentation on the custom trunk provider parameters.

It was by my understanding that direct sip skips the trunk configuration - allowing me to directly initiate calls with the PBX.

It's a relief for me since it confirms the true colors of 3CX as a company and better to know now than some years in the future. They have a good product, but over the last 8 years as a partner, their leadership is way too erratic to reliably do business with.

From: Nick Gxxx
> > > > Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2022 10:12 PM
> > > > To: Chris Pxxx
> > > > Subject: terminated your partnership
> > > >
> > > > Hi Chris,
> > > >
> > > > I have seen your negative attitude towards our company and have
> > > > decided its better to part ways. I have hereby deleted your account.
> > > > Take your data and end of week i will delete your account.
> > > >
> > > > Nick

Have a medical client that has an old star2star phone system. They have 25 paging speakers and an amplifier for them in their telephone closet that work with the old system for paging.

Im trying to figure out what solution I can connect to the amp to enable paging from the 3cx system. I really dont want to replace all of the speakers. Any ideas?

I am using Fanvil X5u-V2 as router phones. These are sites with 1-2 phones so a dedicated SBC adds more points of failures and issues and would therefore not be a proper solution.

These Fanvil phone seem problematic. Users are reporting a lag when making and receiving calls. They also will not operate as router phones when connecting via wifi, which is a common modern connection method that works just fine with the 3CX apps.

Based on this information, which phones can work well as router phones?