If I own a PBX in my home, what can I do with it?

Question

If I had a pbx in my home, can I get telephone for free, for example? What can I do with my own PBX?

Answer 1

A pbx is short for Private Brance Exchange. This means, it acts like a phone system you see in most medium to larger companies. You can transfer calls between extensions, provide voice mail, conference multiple lines together, even connect two different PBX's.

These are private though, and do not connect to the public telephone service unless you either have hardware that allows you to plug the pbx into the phone system (in which you still pay for you phone lines from the phone company) or find someone willing to connect you, which is usually a service which you will again still pay for.

Someone has to pay to connect to the system, and you typically have to pay for a dial-in phone number (called a DID through VOIP services).

If you're just a regular old home user who doesn't need anything fancy, then you really don't need a pbx, unless you simply want to learn the technology and perhaps gain employment in that sector.

You might get slightly better rates if you do a lot of dialing overseas, but then now with Vonage and similar companies offering all you can eat international service to many places.. that's not very likely.

Answer 2

A "PBX" (probably more likely a hybrid KSU or PC-based Asterisk or similar system) can be used in a home the same way it would be used in a business. You can make use of multiple outside lines and multiple extensions. You can do hold, transfer, conferencing, intercom, etc. This can be useful in a large home.

The system, by itself, won't change the way you obtain service compared to a similarly connected single phone (POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service or VOIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol). You still have to pay somebody.