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Glossary
This glossary is intended to better serve you in determining
all your voice, data and telecommunication equipment needs.
If you have any additional questions or any of these terms
need clarification, please call our Customer Service Department
at 215.348.1588.
Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF)
A fancy term to describe push button or touchtone dialing.
Each DTMF has two tones, one low frequency and one high
frequency, which combine to make the tone. This is done
so that the human voice cannot reproduce the sounds. Story:
Captain Crunch. In the 1960s, a gentleman got a whistle
from a Captain Crunch Cereal box and was able to reproduce
the sounds made from the Single Tone telephone. He was
able to make free long distance phone calls. The telecom
industry came out with DTMF to prevent that from happening
again.
End Point
It is a component at the end of a network - a transmitter
or receiver, or an originating or terminating device. A
telephone is sometimes referred to as an end point.
ETSI - European Telecommunications Standards Institute
Founded in 1988, the European Telecommunications Standards
Institute was established to produce telecommunications
standards by democratic means. Its main aim is the unrestricted
communication between all the member states by the provision
of essential European standards.
Feed Cable
Feed cable usually connects and intermediate distribution
frame (IDF) to a main distribution frame (MDF). It is a
group of wires that supports multiple phones in a single
cable sheath.
FOC
The date when the circuits ordered will be installed.
Gateway
An entrance or an exit into a communications network.
A gateway is an electronic repeater device that intercepts
and steers electric signals from one network to another.
GSM - Global System for Mobile communications
GSM is the standard digital cellular phone service in
Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. It covers a total
of 85 countries around the world.
GSTN - Global Switched Telephone Network
Same as the Public Switched Telephone Network. .
HIP and SIP
HIP is a hard phone system, meaning it is an actual phone
is used. SIP is a soft phone system, meaning that phone
calls are done through a computer.
House Cables
Communication cable within a building or a complex of
buildings and owned by the local phone company. House cables
come from the terminal box in the basement or the nearby
outside pedestal box and goes straight to the apartment
or house.
Hunting
Refers to the progress of a call reaching a group of lines.
The call will try the first line of the group. If that
line is busy, it will try the second line, and so on.
IDC
Insulation Displacement Connection is a type of wire connection
device in which the wire is punched down into a double
metal holder. As it is punched down, the metal holders
strip away the insulation from wire causing an electrical
connection to be made.
IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force
Formed in 1986, the IETF is one of two technical working
bodies of the Internet Activities Board. It meets three
times a year to set the technical standards that run the
Internet.
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
ISDN is a concept of what the world's telephone system
should be. Its goal is to eliminate the deficiencies in
four ways: 1. Providing an internationally accepted standard
for voice, data, and signaling. 2. Making all transmission
circuits end-to-end digital. 3. Adopting a standard out-of-band
signaling system. 4. Bringing significantly more bandwidth
to the desktop. ISDN comes in two forms - BRI and PRI.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Think of this as a voice computer. IVR systems allow individuals
to access information in an organization’s computer
database via the telephone. Also, users can execute certain
tasks without the intervention of a customer service representative,
such as bank by phone and tracking a package. About 30
to 60% of the routine inbound calls can be automated, maximizing
the effectiveness of the staff.
Intermediate Distribution Frame (IDF)
A metal rack designed to connect cables and located in
an equipment room or closet. Provides the connections between
inter-building cabling and the inter-building cabling (i.e.
between the Main Distribution Frame and the individual
phone wiring). The changes in wiring are done in the IDF.
This saves confusion in wiring.
IP - Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol is a standard describing software that
keeps track of the Internet’s addresses for different
nodes, routes outgoing messages, and recognizes incoming
messages.
IPDC - IP Device Control
(Family of protocols, IETF work in progress, see also
MGCP)
IPT - Internet Telephony
IP Telephony is a set of technologies that enables voice,
data, and video collaboration over existing IP-based LANs,
WANs, and the Internet.
ISP - Internet Service Provider
A vendor who provides access for customers to the Internet
and World Wide Web.
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