Direct Inward Dialing Number (Also known as DID or DDI)
Most businesses have several incoming telephone numbers used for specific purposes. For example customer service, sales, etc. Some have an individual telephone number for each user in the system. In a home setting on the other hand, each telephone number comes in on a different pair of wires typically. This is not practical in a business enviroment that has many telephone numbers. So DID ("direct inward dialing") was invented as a way to re-use a limited number of physical phone lines to handle calls to different published numbers.
In a business with DID, the phone company uses DID signalling to identify the number they are about to connect to the business's PBX. Historically, this was done by pulsing the last 3 or 4 digits of the number being dialed before connecting the number. The PBX would use these DID digits to switch the call to the right recipient.
