In telecommunications, a channel bank is a device that performs multiplexing or demultiplexing ("demux") of a group of communications channels, such as analog or digital telephone lines, into one channel of higher bandwidth or higher digital bit rate, such as a DS-1 (T1) circuit.
A channel bank may be located in a telephone exchange, or in an enterprise's telephone closet or enclosure where it "breaks out" individual telephone lines from a high-capacity telephone trunk line connected to the central telephone office, or the enterprise's PBX system.
A working example in the finance industry is to provide several automatic ringdown (ARD) lines over a single T-1.
Famous quotes containing the words channel and/or bank:
“Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)