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:
“There is the falsely mystical view of art that assumes a kind of supernatural inspiration, a possession by universal forces unrelated to questions of power and privilege or the artist’s relation to bread and blood. In this view, the channel of art can only become clogged and misdirected by the artist’s concern with merely temporary and local disturbances. The song is higher than the struggle.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“on a May morwening upon Malverne hilles
Me befel a ferly, of fairye me thoughte;
I was wery ofwandred and wente me to reste
Under a brod bank by a bournes side;
And as I lay and lenede and lookede on the watres,
I slomerede into a sleeping, it swyede so merye.”
—William Langland (1330–1400)