According to Webopedia, T-1 or Trunk Line One is a dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of 1.544Mbits per second. A T-1 line consists of 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64Kbits per second. Each 64Kbit/second channel can be configured to carry voice or data traffic.

Within the communications world, trunking is analogous to the structure of a tree with one trunk and many branches. According to Wikipedia, this is exactly how trunking got its name. Trunking is a concept by which a communications system can provide network access to many clients by sharing a set of lines or frequencies instead of providing them individually.

T-1 lines are a popular leased line option for businesses connecting to the Internet and for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) connecting to the Internet backbone. Here are some more facts for your review:

• T-1 transmits digital signals instead of analog.
• T-1 connections are available in US, Japan and South Korea, while E-1 connections are available in Europe.
• T-1 PRI offers 23 channels and 1 additional channel to pass data such as Caller ID and improve performance. T-1 PRI is often used for call centers.
• A Bonded T1 is two T1 lines offering 3.0 Mbps of bandwidth.
• A T-1 line is either made of fiber or copper and T1 is being replaced by Fiber to the x (FTTx) technologies, which is a generic term for any broadband network architecture that uses optical fiber to replace all or part of the usual metal local loop used for last mile telecommunications.

Inphonite, LLC develops and markets professional, automated phone messaging systems and interactive computer telephony products that improve the profitability and productivity of a wide range of organizations. InphoniteVoice supports Digital, Analog and VoIP connections.

What is PBX?:
PBX (Private Branch eXchange) is a privately owned telephone switching system for handling multiple telephone lines without having to pay the phone company to lease each line separately. A PBX essentially takes the place of the phone company's Central Office within the company by acting as the exchange point, routing calls. With a PBX in place, each phone only needs an extension, not a phone number, and the PBX handles all calls made from desk-to-desk within the company.

Currently, there are four distinct scenarios in use:

1. PBX (Private and Circuit Switched)
   See definition above.
2. Hosted/Virtual PBX (Hosted and Circuit Switched)
   PBX is located at and managed by the telephone service provider, and features and calls are delivered via the Internet. You just sign up for a service, rather than buying and maintaining expensive hardware. This essentially removes the branch from the private premises, moving it to a central location.
3. VoIP PBX (Private and Packet Switched)
   Uses the Internet Protocol to carry calls. Companies need packet switched networks for data, so using them for telephone calls was tempting, and the availability of the Internet as a global delivery system made packet switched communications even more attractive.
4. IP Centrex or Hosted/Virtual IP (Hosted and Packet Switched)
   Combination of 2 and 3 above.

History of PBX and How it Can Help You:
Historically, the expense of full-fledged PBX systems has put them out of reach of small businesses and individuals. However, since the 1990s there has been a large set of small, consumer-grade and consumer-size PBXs available. And because of the scenarios above, you have many more choices on what can help your business specifically. Inphonite, LLC develops and markets professional, automated phone messaging systems and interactive computer telephony products that improve the profitability and productivity of a wide range of organizations.

• Open the InphoniteVoice Administrator Client and bring up the channel configuration:

• For each channel that you want be reserved for transfer capability, change the call direction to TransferOrConference.
• Change the Transfer Method property to Conference.
  
• After you have restarted the Inphonite Interface Service, you can monitor the status of the channels and verify your configuration by bringing up the Interface Monitor:
  

As you can see, "Conference" transfers are easy to set up, and best of all it works with any phone line or VoIP provider.

Most of our users are not geeks. They can turn on computers and use them to accomplish things, but when it comes to changing domain rights or networking computers together, they're lost. And they should be; that's not their area of expertise. So we in the Support Department at Inphonite often find ourselves speaking with geeks who have been brought in for a specific purpose: to troubleshoot the things that non-geeks don't have the time or desire to try to figure out.

IT consultants are a great resource. They often are involved in the installation of our products, or in troubleshooting some mysterious problem that all-of-a-sudden cropped up. In those situations, your geek needs to talk to our geek, and soon. Of course, the support engineers at Inphonite can sometimes seem a little hard to reach, and the smallest delay seems like hours when you're paying someone $65 an hour to be there.

Most software vendors — including Inphonite — make their support representatives available for scheduled appointments. Quite frankly, this is the best way to make sure that a geek here is available for your geek there. Since you probably have to schedule time with your IT person, schedule time with our support engineer at the same time. This way, you can have the peace of mind knowing that everyone who needs to be involved in your installation process or in troubleshooting your mysterious issue will be available. No calling in a panic needed. And no paying someone $65 an hour to sit by the phone playing solitaire.

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ReminderPro and InphoniteVoice are compatible with Skype for SIP, now in open beta.

In addition to Skype, other SIP providers supported by Inphonite include Verizon, VoiceEclipse, Broadsoft, Sylantro, Level 3, Quest, and GlobalIP.  A knowledgebase article on VoIP support for Inphonite products can be found here.