Essential & Advanced Class 5 Features for Business:

In the traditional telecom hierarchy, Class 5 refers to the local central office switch. Think of it as your neighbourhood phone exchange—the one that directly serves end-users (subscribers) and provides basic calling features.

In the VoIP world, "Class 5 Features" have evolved to mean the comprehensive suite of subscriber-facing features and services that a service provider offers to businesses and end-users. This is the "retail level" of telephony.

When a VoIP provider advertises "Class 5 Soft switch" capabilities, they're saying they can deliver the full spectrum of features a modern business expects from a phone service.

Core Call Management:

• Call Forwarding/Routing: Redirect calls based on rules (time, caller ID, busy/no answer).
• Voicemail & Visual Voicemail: Voicemail delivered as audio files to email.
• Caller ID (Name & Number): Display who's calling.
• Call Waiting & Call Hold: Manage multiple calls.
• Three-Way Calling/Conferencing: Basic multi-party calls.

Advanced Call Handling & Auto-Attendant:

• IVR (Interactive Voice Response): "Press 1 for Sales, 2 for Support..." A crucial self-service and routing tool.
• Auto-Attendant: A digital receptionist that answers with a custom greeting and routes calls.
• Find Me/Follow Me: Ring multiple devices (desk phone, mobile, laptop) in sequence or simultaneously until you answer.
• Call Parking & Picking: Place a call on a "parking lot" extension so it can be retrieved from any other phone.
• Call Recording: Record conversations for training, compliance, or quality assurance (with notification laws in mind).

Mobility & Unified Communications:

• Softphone Clients: Use an app on your computer or mobile device as your office phone.
• Click-to-Call: Click a contact in your CRM or email to dial instantly.
• Presence: See colleagues' real-time status (Available, Busy, In a Call, Out to Lunch).

Administrative & Operational:

• Web-based Admin Portal: A user-friendly dashboard to add users, change call flows, and view analytics.
• Call Detail Records (CDRs) & Analytics: Detailed logs and reports on call volume, duration, peak times, and agent performance.
• Dial Plan Management: Create custom rules for how calls are dialed (e.g., automatically adding "9" for an outside line or "011" for international).
• Number Porting: Keep your existing business phone numbers when you switch.
• E911: Enhanced 911 that provides your registered physical address to emergency services, a critical safety feature for remote workers.