PBX - The Distribution Point of A Phone Network

"Welcome to XYZ Ltd. Our officer will be at your service shortly..."
"XYZ is your ultimate partner in investing..."
"To leave a message, press 2; to redirect your call, press 3..."

Words like these are well-known to those who often call business offices. I do. These words often mean that you may have to wait some long minutes before being able to talk to any human being... but it also means that the company you are calling makes use of a PBX.

A PBX (Private Branch Exchange), also called a phone exchange, is a hardware device using a software that switches between phone lines, thereby creating and stopping connections between phones. It also channels external calls to one particular desired internal phone (through extensions). PBXs have many interesting functions and features. Read more on the functions of a PBX here.

The most popular PBX software on the market is open-source Asterisk, which PCMag describes in this nice article entitled 'Asterisk: An Open-Source PBX Gateway'.

See also

• Common VoIP Hardware Devices
• VoIP Features
• The Internet Protocol (IP)