The SBC is used to interconnect a remote office to your main HQ. When using the 3CX SBC, one of the main benefits is the fact that you do not need to pay for a 3CX PBX license in each location. Instead, you will be able to have one main PBX (located in the HQ) and an SBC running in any remote office you have. This makes it so much more cost effective to run your operations.
One might argue – why not give them a remote phone directly? Well, this is another problem the SBC solves because a remote phone will cause audio issues and networking issues since they pass from so many router hops. The SBC eliminates this completely.
So why Debian?
Before our last update you either had to have a Windows machine running in the remote office 24/7, bear in mind Windows license costs and machine costs. One could argue that the SBC could be installed on an existing laptop, but what happens when that laptop crashes or is not in the office? No phones work! OR you could buy a Raspberry Pi – costs something like 90 bucks and have it running. But again – this is a 5V power supply little device which is good for 5-10 users. And then you have phones, with numerous BLF lamps, all connected to the HQ PBX with 300 users, receiving updates back and forth – not a very long term solution.
And here comes Debian which is free, if need be you can spend a small amount on a Debian VM, and you have a fully blown operating system serving the 3CX PBX with the SBC running on Debian.
This is the cool part. You have a free solution running on a real OS with a real server class network stack and the lowest memory footprint ever, due to the efficiency of the OS. And if you do not have a machine running with Vmware on it, well you can get a mini PC and you can have that running in your office instead