Glossary Of Common Telecom Terms

802.3
A wireless local area network (ethernet) standard *Wiki Link

802.11
A wireless local area network (ethernet) standard *Wiki Link

Analog Line
Also know as a POTS line (Plain Old Telephone Service). The original phone line delivered via electrical voltages over two wires (labeled as tip and ring) over a closed continuous end to end circuit. *Wiki Link

Auto-Attendant
(AA) The automated attendant can replace the need for a receptionist. Callers can be automatically transferred to an extension using an number or dial-by-name feature. They can also detect whether a user is in our out of the office and can forward calls respectively. ProTel's auto-attendants help you avoid voicemail hell by properly setting up your attendant system the first time and providing service for you as you grow and change. *Wiki Link

CLEC
Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. A telecom provider or "carrier" that competes with the pre-existing Local Exchange Carriers (ILEC). *Wiki Link

CPU
(Central Processing Unit) A generic term for either a server or the main computing components of the a server, PC or other computing device. The part of the computer performs the logic and decision making functions of the system. *Wiki Link

DID
(Direction Inward Dial) A feature delivered by your telco carrier that provides you the ability to give each employee, phone or fax it's own dedicated 10 digit number that can be dialed directly and not transferred by on operator or Automated Attendant. Also Direct Dial-In (DDI). *Wiki Link

DSL
(Digital Subscriber Line) A generic name for a data service provided by CLEC and telco. This data service call allow for up to 8 millions bits per second downstream "headed towards you" and a slower rate upstream, or outgoing. This is a common type of service used for connections to the internet. *Wiki Link

Dial Tone
The warm fuzzy sound you hear when you first pick up the receiver and place it to your ear. If you don't hear dial tone, you don't have phone line service. *Wiki Link

Digital Line
A line or circuit where the transmission method being used is a string of data or "0's" and "1's" or "bits" that form a string of "bytes" that make up the data being transmitted over that line. A few of the typical digital line in use are T-1's. PRI's and such. A 3 Mb data line is a data line that transmits at a speed of 3 Megabits, this would be twice a fast as T-1 line that transmits at approximately 1.5 Mb

Ethernet
A local area network standard officially known as IEEE 802.X (with X being the identifier of one of the many sub-headings under this standard to denote data speeds, type of media used (wired, fiber or copper, wireless, etc) Two the most common are 802.3 denoting a *Wiki Link

Hunt Group
(1) A group of lines in a group that act as one number with multiple communications channels so that one number can be used for a caller to reach a a group of people who can help that caller. (2) A group of phones or agents that handle the same type of calls as in a customer service group or help desk. *Wiki Link

Hunting
The terms used to describe two or more lines that work in a "roll over" fashion. For example, if you have 3 lines in your business; one is the main published number and the other two may be additional lines to handle the simultaneous incoming traffic. You only publish the first number and when the line is busy or in use the next incoming call with "hunt" or "roll over" to the 2nd line and 3rd line to be answered. *Wiki Link

IEEE
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The IEEE creates standards for networking and wireless communications. It is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. *Wiki Link

IVR
(Interactive Voice Response) The generic term for a machine (hardware and software on a server) that will interface to a phone line and provide an inbound caller to gather information about accounts, orders, etc. For example: Dial 1 for account balance. *Wiki Link

Jitter
Is described as variability in latency or delay. It a network has varying levels of latency (different waiting times) for different data packets, it can/will introduce jitter. Jitter is very disruptive to the audio quality of a VoIP network system. A lot of jitter is not a good thing for a VoIP network or system. *Wiki Link

LAN
(Local Area Network) A generic name for a data network connection, computers, PC's workstations, printers, faxes, et all; so that they can communicate with each other. Most LAN's are configured to work using one of the Ethernet protocols. *Wiki Link

Latency
A fancy term for waiting time or delay; the time it takes information or data to make its way through a particular network. VoIP is very sensitive to latency and delay; either of which will affect the voice quality of the network or system. Latency is not a good thing for VoIP. *Wiki Link

Local Area Network
(LAN) A generic name for a data network connection, computers, PC's workstations, printers, faxes, et all; so that they can communicate with each other. Most LAN's are configured to work using one of the Ethernet protocols. *Wiki Link

POTS
(Plain Old Telephone Service) The original phone line delivered via electrical voltages over two wires (labeled as tip and ring) over a closed continuous end to end circuit. Also See Analog Line. *Wiki Link

PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone Network). i.e. The phone network as the sum of all the telco provides who deliver voice lines, phone numbers, etc. The folks who deliver the actual lines and phone numbers to your door. *Wiki Link

QoS
(Quality of Service) A measure of the level of service quality provided by a telecommunications provider or device. If a router, for example, can provide QoS functionality, it can be programmed or tuned to deliver voice packets ahead of data packets and provide a better voice quality. *Wiki Link

Router
Intelligent data devices that connect like and unlike networks. LAN's, WAN's use routers to connect to each other and to the Internet or other public or private data circuits. Routers typically are loaded with a public IP address that will allow it to function as the gateway for one network connecting to another. For example, a typical business with have a router as their data connection to the Internet.

Switch
This word has many meanings when it comes to communications. For one, it describes the process of transferring a call from one circuit to another (as in to switch a call, hence the term switchboard operator). Another common meaning is as a generic term for a network connection device used to connect other network components, (printers, PC's, etc) to each other. These switches will carry names that denote the speed at which they can operate. For example a 100Mb switch can deliver data 10 times faster than a 10MB switch. *Wiki Link

Telco or Telco Carrier
The term used to describe a service provider such as Qwest, XO, AT&T, etc. *Wiki Link

VoIP
(Voice Over Internet Protocol) The technology used to transmit voice conversations over a data network using the Internet Protocol (IP). Such data network may be their Internet or a corporate Intranet (LAN or WAN). *Wiki Link

WAN
(Wide Area Network) A public or private voice or data network that extends either beyond one physical location or a metropolitan area. (A branch office in a different city, for example). *Wiki Link

WLAN
(Wireless Local Area Network). A link created between two or more computers without using wires. *Wiki Link

Wi-Fi
Wireless technology *Wiki Link