IP PBX Buying Guide for UAE Offices (2026): Sizes, Costs, SIP Trunks and Installation
Somebody has told you to “sort out the phones”. This guide is the shortcut: how to size an IP PBX for a UAE office, what it really costs once phones, switch and installation are counted, how lines from e& or du fit in, and what to do with the analogue handsets and the fax machine you cannot throw away. Written from the systems we install in Dubai every month, not from a brochure.
- Is VoIP legal in the UAE?
- How many extensions and lines you need
- Which PBX: Yeastar, Grandstream or cloud
- What it costs, item by item
- SIP trunk or PRI from e& and du
- Keeping analogue phones, fax and door phones
- Choosing desk phones and DECT
- Installation, cutover and what can go wrong
- The list to send for a quote
- Questions we get asked
1. Is VoIP legal in the UAE?
Yes, and this is the first thing to settle because the internet is full of half-answers. Running an IP PBX in your office is completely legal in the UAE. The regulated part is who carries the call once it leaves your building: voice has to ride on a TDRA-licensed operator, which in practice means e& (Etisalat) or du, delivered to your premises as a business SIP trunk or a PRI line.
What the UAE restricts is different: consumer VoIP apps for calling, and unlicensed foreign VoIP carriers selling cheap international minutes. If a supplier offers to route your company calls through an overseas VoIP provider “to save money”, that is the arrangement that gets blocked, and it is your trade licence attached to it. Everything in this guide assumes the compliant setup: your own PBX, your own phones, licensed local trunks.
2. How many extensions and lines do you actually need?
Two different numbers decide the size of the system, and people usually only count one.
Extensions are seats, not staff. Count one per desk, then add the shared ones everybody forgets: reception, meeting rooms, the warehouse wall phone, the security cabin, the lift phone, the gate intercom, the kitchen. Add a DECT handset for anyone who moves around the building. Then add roughly 20 percent for the next two years so you are not buying a bigger PBX in eighteen months.
Concurrent calls are how many conversations can be live at the same time, and this is what your trunk is sized on. A normal office runs on one external channel per four to six users. A call centre or a hotel reservations desk is the opposite: almost every seat is on a call at once.
| Your situation | Extensions | Concurrent calls | Typical system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small office, one floor | 10–20 | 4–8 | Yeastar P520 or Grandstream UCM6302 |
| Growing SME, two floors or two branches | 30–50 | 8–15 | Yeastar P550 or Grandstream UCM6304 |
| Clinic, school, showroom chain | 50–120 | 15–30 | Yeastar P560 or UCM6308 |
| Hotel or contact centre | 120–500 | 30–120 | Yeastar P570 with expansion |
3. Which PBX: Yeastar, Grandstream, or cloud?
For UAE offices the realistic shortlist is short. We install Yeastar and Grandstream most weeks, and the choice usually comes down to who administers the system and what else is on the network.
| Yeastar P-Series | Grandstream UCM | Cloud / hosted PBX | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best when | Non-technical admin, staff on mobiles, hotels with PMS | Budget matters, you also buy Grandstream phones, cameras, intercoms | Small distributed team, no local hardware, no analogue devices |
| Administration | Cleanest web interface; most tasks are obvious | Powerful, slightly more technical | Provider’s portal |
| Mobile app | Linkus, the strongest of the three | Wave, good and free | Varies by provider |
| Analogue and fax | Onboard FXS/FXO slots plus gateways | Onboard FXS/FXO on most models | Needs gateways anyway |
| Ongoing cost | One-off purchase, optional feature licences | One-off purchase, no per-user licence | Per user per month, forever |
| Survives an internet outage | Internal calls keep working | Internal calls keep working | Everything stops |
The honest summary: if the building has rooms, gates, fax, paging or anything analogue, buy on-premise. If you are eight people in a co-working space, cloud is fine and we will say so.
4. What an IP PBX really costs in the UAE
Quotes vary because people compare different scopes. Here is the full shape of a UAE project, with our Dubai prices for the hardware and honest ranges for the rest.
| Item | 20 users | 50 users | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| IP PBX | from AED 1,450 (P520) | from AED 2,220 (P550) | One-off. Licences only for extra features |
| Desk phones | AED 110–170 each (T31G) | Mix entry and mid-range | Managers often get colour-screen models |
| PoE switch | from AED 500 | 24–48 port, from AED 1,200 | One cable per desk, one UPS protects all phones |
| Gateways (if analogue stays) | FXS/FXO as needed | TA1600, TA810 | Keeps fax, room phones, old handsets alive |
| Installation and configuration | project-based | project-based | Extensions, IVR, queues, recording, cutover |
| SIP trunk / PRI | operator monthly | operator monthly | Billed by e& or du, not by us |
As a planning figure: a tidy 20-seat office lands around AED 5,000 to 7,000 for hardware and installation, and a 50-seat office around AED 12,000 to 18,000, before the operator’s monthly line charges. Hotels and contact centres are quoted per project because the room count, PMS integration and recording requirements move the number a lot.
5. SIP trunk or PRI from e& and du
Your PBX needs lines. In the UAE that means a business SIP trunk or a PRI (E1) from e& or du, delivered to the office address on the trade licence. A few things worth knowing before you apply:
- The trunk is in your name, not ours. You apply with your trade licence, Emirates ID of the signatory and the office address; we supply the technical details the operator asks for and configure the PBX when the credentials arrive.
- Numbers stay with the operator. Keeping your existing +971 4 or +971 2 numbers is usually possible when the line stays with the same operator; ask the account manager before you sign anything.
- Channels, not lines. SIP trunks are sold in channels (simultaneous calls). Size from the table in section 2; it is easy to add channels later, which is one reason SIP beats PRI for most offices now.
- PRI still makes sense where a site already has an E1 and a large hotel or call centre depends on it. An E1/T1 gateway connects it to a modern IP PBX so you do not have to change both at once.
- Backup: a 4G gateway such as the TG400L with SIM cards keeps outbound calls alive when the fibre is cut. For a clinic or a hotel that is not a luxury.
6. Keeping analogue phones, fax and door phones
Almost every UAE building has something that is not an IP phone: hotel room handsets, a fax machine the bank still insists on, a lift phone, a gate intercom, a paging horn in the warehouse. You do not have to replace them.
- FXS gateway — plugs analogue handsets and fax machines into the IP PBX. One port per device; 8, 16, 24 and 32-port models. This is how hotels keep the room phones.
- FXO gateway — brings existing analogue PSTN lines into the PBX, useful during a transition or where a landline must stay for an alarm or a lift.
- GSM / 4G gateway — puts SIM cards into the PBX for mobile-to-mobile savings and as an outage backup.
- Fax — keep the machine on an FXS port, or move to fax-to-email on the PBX and keep one physical machine for the stubborn counterparties.
7. Choosing desk phones and DECT
Phones are where the budget quietly doubles, so match the model to the seat instead of buying one model for everybody.
- Entry desk phone (Yealink T31G, T33G): reception overflow, warehouse, hotel back office, shared desks. Gigabit and PoE, two to four lines.
- Mid-range colour screen: managers, anyone who uses a headset all day, anyone who needs a busy-lamp field to see who is free.
- Expansion module: the receptionist watching 30 extensions. One module, not a bigger phone.
- DECT (Yealink W70B base plus handsets): warehouses, clinics, housekeeping, anyone who is never at a desk. Multi-cell versions cover a whole building.
- Hotel phones (Grandstream GHP620W and similar): one-touch service keys, Wi-Fi models so you do not cable every room again.
- Softphone only: field staff and directors who live on their mobile. Costs nothing extra on Yeastar or Grandstream.
Browse the full range on the IP phones page, or send us the seat breakdown and we will map models to roles.
8. Installation, cutover, and what usually goes wrong
- Survey. Ports, cabling, where the PBX and switch live, what analogue devices exist, what the internet connection is.
- Configuration before delivery. Extensions, IVR (“press 1 for sales”), ring groups, queues, voicemail, call recording, mobile app accounts. We do this in our office so your cutover is short.
- Installation. Mount, patch, PoE, phone labelling, handset provisioning. Phones register on first boot because they are pre-provisioned.
- Cutover. Trunk switched over, test calls in and out, fax test, emergency numbers checked, old system left in place for a day where possible.
- Handover. A short session for whoever will add an extension when a new employee starts, plus a written record of the dial plan.
The three problems we see most: the survey missed a device (lift phone, fax, gate), the internet connection has no static IP or insufficient upload, and nobody decided who answers the main number at 1 pm. All three are cheap to fix before the order and expensive after it.
9. What to send us for a quote
A useful quote takes four lines of information:
- Number of desks, plus shared phones (reception, meeting rooms, warehouse, lift, gate) and how many staff move around the building.
- Any analogue devices that must survive: room phones, fax, intercoms, paging.
- Current lines: operator, how many numbers, whether you want to keep them, and whether you already have a SIP trunk or PRI.
- Where the office is and whether you want us to install, or ship a pre-configured system.
Send the four lines, get a real quote
We reply within one working day with a sized system, the phone mix, the switch, and the installation cost, plus an alternative if a cheaper model does the same job. Brand-new, sealed hardware with manufacturer warranty, VAT invoice, and export documents when the system leaves the UAE.
10. Questions we get asked
Is VoIP legal in the UAE for an office phone system?
Yes. Running an IP PBX in your office is legal and normal in the UAE. The rule is about who carries the calls: voice must go through a TDRA-licensed operator, which in practice means e& (Etisalat) or du, on a business SIP trunk or PRI delivered to your premises. What is blocked are consumer VoIP apps and unlicensed international VoIP carriers, not your PBX. If someone offers you cheap foreign VoIP minutes for a UAE office, that is the part that is not allowed.
How much does an IP PBX system cost in the UAE?
The PBX itself is the small part. For a 20-user office expect roughly AED 1,400 to 1,800 for the PBX, AED 110 to 170 per desk phone, a PoE switch from about AED 500, plus installation and configuration; that is around AED 5,000 to 7,000 all-in for 20 seats with basic phones. A 50-user system lands near AED 12,000 to 18,000 depending on phone models, and a 200-user hotel or call-centre build is quoted per project. The monthly SIP trunk from e& or du is separate and billed by them.
How many extensions do I need?
Count seats, not people: one extension per desk, plus shared extensions for reception, meeting rooms, warehouse, security and any lift or gate phone, plus DECT handsets for staff who move. Then add about 20 percent headroom for the next two years. Concurrent calls matter more than extensions: most offices need one external line per four to six users, so a 50-user office usually runs comfortably on 10 to 15 channels.
What is the difference between PBX and PABX?
Nothing meaningful today. PABX (private automatic branch exchange) is the older term still used in the Gulf for office phone systems; PBX is the shorter modern form. Both describe the box that connects your internal extensions to each other and to outside lines. What matters is whether it is an old analogue/digital PABX or an IP PBX that runs over your network.
Can I keep my existing analogue phones and fax machine?
Yes. An FXS gateway connects analogue handsets, door phones and fax machines to the new IP PBX, so hotel rooms and old desk phones keep working. If you also want to keep analogue PSTN lines during the transition, an FXO gateway brings them into the same system. This is the normal way to phase a hotel or a factory onto IP without replacing every handset on day one.
Cloud PBX or on-premise PBX: which is better for a UAE office?
On-premise wins when you have hotel rooms, analogue devices, fax, door phones or paging, when calls must keep working on the local network during an internet outage, and when the finance team prefers a one-off purchase. Cloud wins for small distributed teams with no local hardware. Many UAE companies end up with a hybrid: an on-premise PBX with softphone apps for staff who travel.
What happens to the phones when the internet goes down?
Internal calls between extensions keep working, because the PBX and phones sit on your own network. External calls stop until the line is back unless you have a backup path: a second trunk from the other operator, or a 4G gateway with SIM cards that the PBX fails over to automatically. For hotels, clinics and call centres we usually quote that backup with the system.
Do IP phones need PoE?
It is the practical choice. PoE means one cable per desk and no power adapters under the table, and the switch can be protected by a single UPS so phones survive a power dip. Count the phones, add access points and cameras if they share the switch, and size the PoE budget with about 30 percent headroom.
Which is the best IP PBX brand in the UAE?
For most offices it is Yeastar or Grandstream. Yeastar P-Series is the easiest to administer and has the best mobile app experience, which matters when staff answer calls on phones. Grandstream UCM is strong value and pairs well with Grandstream phones, cameras and door intercoms on one platform. We deploy both and will tell you which fits your situation, including when neither is right.
Can you install and configure it, or do you only supply?
Both. IRIX configures extensions, trunks, IVR, queues, voicemail and call recording before delivery, installs on site anywhere in the UAE, and stays on the line during the cutover. For customers outside the UAE we ship pre-configured units with the settings agreed by email.
Written by the IRIX telephony team in Bur Dubai. We have supplied and installed IP telephony in the UAE since 2015 and in Azerbaijan since 2008. Prices are indicative for planning and change with stock; operator line charges are billed by e& or du. Browse IP PBX systems, IP phones, VoIP gateways and PBX modules.