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How to Keep Receiving Business Calls During an Internet Outage

If your business loses internet connectivity, your office phones may stop receiving calls. PMX can help you continue answering customer calls by temporarily forwarding your existing business number to one or more cellphones.

This can be especially helpful for restaurants, offices, retail stores, and other businesses that depend on incoming calls.

How emergency phone forwarding works

  • Keep your existing number. Customers continue dialing the same business telephone number.
  • Receive calls on cellphones. Calls can be routed to one or more designated cellphones, depending on your phone system configuration.
  • Let multiple people answer. Where supported, two or more cellphones can ring at the same time, and the first person to answer takes the call.
  • Restore normal routing later. PMX can switch your calls back to your regular phone system when internet service is restored.

This is a temporary change

Emergency forwarding normally stays in place until PMX changes it back. Simply restoring your internet connection does not necessarily restore your regular call routing.

How to request emergency forwarding

Contact PMX Support and provide:

  1. Business name and your main business telephone number.
  2. Cellphone numbers that should receive incoming calls.
  3. Whether you want all cellphones to ring at once or have another preferred arrangement.
  4. A contact person available to help us place a test call.

Our team will review your existing routing, make an appropriate temporary change, and help you verify calls are reaching the right people.

Request emergency phone forwarding →

For urgent outages, you can also call PMX at (224) 880-0200.

What happens when the internet comes back?

Please let PMX know when your connection is stable again. We'll help restore your original call flow, which may include business-hours schedules, ring groups, automated greetings, or voicemail.

We recommend making a test call after restoration to confirm the office phones are ringing normally.

Can we prevent this in the future?

An appropriately configured backup internet connection, such as LTE or 5G, may keep compatible VoIP phones online if your primary internet service fails. PMX can review backup-connectivity options based on your location, equipment, and business needs.

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