Business PBX Phone Systems

A Private Branch eXchange (PBX) is a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office, as opposed to one that a common carrier or telephone company operates for many businesses or for the general public. PBXs are also referred to as: PABX - Private Automatic Branch eXchange and EPABX - Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange.

PBXs operate as a connection between a private organisation - usually a business - and the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Because they incorporate telephones, fax machines, modems, and more, the general term "extension" is used to refer to any end point on the branch. The PBX handles calls between these extensions as well as connections to the PSTN via trunk lines.

PBXs are differentiated from "key systems" in that users of key systems manually select their own outgoing lines, while PBXs select the outgoing line automatically. Hybrid systems combine features of both.

Business PBX Phone System Functionally

A business PBX phone system should perform three main duties:

• Establishing connections (circuits) between the telephone sets of two users. (E.g. mapping a dialled number to a physical phone, ensuring the phone isn't already busy)
• Maintaining such connections as long as the users require them. (I.e. channelling voice signals between the users)
• Providing information for accounting purposes (e.g. metering calls)

In addition to these basic functions, Business PBX phone systems offer many other calling features and capabilities Common capabilities include:

For more information on which business PBX phone system would best suit your business then call Direct Telecom free on 0808 165 86 86.