IP PBX

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An IP (Internet Protocol) PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is a business telephone system designed to deliver voice over a data network and interoperate with the normal Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

In essence, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) gateways are combined with traditional PBX functionality enabling businesses to use their managed intranet to help reduce long distance expenses, enjoy the benefits of a single network for voice and data and advanced CTI features.

An IP-PBX can exist as a hardware object, or virtually, as a software system, such as Asterisk or FreeSWITCH.

Because a major part of IPBX functionality is provided in software, it is relatively inexpensive and easy to add aditional functionality, such as conferencing, XML-RPC control of live calls, Interactive voice response (IVR), TTS/ASR (text to speech/automatic speech recognition), Public switched telephone network (PSTN) interconnection ability supporting both analogue and digital circuits, Voice over IP protocols including SIP, Inter-Asterisk eXchange, H.323, Jabber, GoogleTalk and others.