Private Branch Exchange

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What Does Private Branch Exchange Mean?

A private branch exchange (PBX) is a private telephone network used within an enterprise. It is a business-oriented phone system designed to supply efficient voice communications between the users of an organization. Acting as the phone company’s central office within an organization, a PBX works as the exchange point and point for routing calls.

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Techopedia Explains Private Branch Exchange

The word private refers to its use in the private sector, as opposed to a public telecommunications company. Branch indicates a remote subsystem, and exchange points to its switching functionality. Most medium-sized and larger companies used a PBX because it is less expensive than connecting an external phone line to every phone line in an organization.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist
Margaret Rouse
Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.