April 2005

  • telco (telephone company)

    In the United States and possibly other countries, "telco" is a short form for telephone company.

  • Synchronous Optical Network (SONET)

    SONET is the American National Standards Institute standard for synchronous data transmission on optical media.

  • single mode fiber

    In optical fiber technology, single mode fiber is optical fiber that is designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier and is used for long-distance signal transmission.

  • i-Mode

    i-Mode is the packet-based service for mobile phones offered by Japan's leader in wireless technology, NTT DoCoMo.

  • frequency-division multiplexing (FDM)

    Frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) is a scheme in which numerous signals are combined for transmission on a single communications line or channel.

  • akamaize

    For a Web site, to akamaize (pronounced AHK-uh-myez) is to accelerate the delivery of Web files by placing copies on servers closer to the user than the server that delivers the main file for a Web...

  • slamming

    Slamming is the practice by some U.S. long-distance phone carriers of switching users to their service without the user's knowledge or authorization.

  • set-top box

    A set-top box is a device that enables a television set to become a user interface to the Internet and also enables a television set to receive and decode digital television (DTV) broadcasts.

  • bit stream

    A bit stream is a contiguous sequence of bits, representing a stream of data, transmitted continously over a communications path, serially (one at a time).

  • aggregator

    Like its synonym concentrator, an aggregator is any device that serves multiple other devices or users either with its own capabilities or by forwarding transmissions in a more concentrated and eco...

  • address

    An address can mean the unique location of either ( an Internet server, (2) a specific file (for example, a Web page), or (3) an e-mail user. It is also used to specify the location of data within ...

  • half-duplex

    Half-duplex data transmission means that data can be transmitted in both directions on a signal carrier, but not at the same time.

  • terminal adapter (TA)

    A terminal adapter (TA) is a hardware interface between a computer and an Integrated Services Digital Network line.

  • Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN)

    The Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) is a telephone network architecture that separates service logic from switching equipment, allowing new services to be added without having to redesign switch...

  • x2

    x2 is a technology from US Robotics (now 3Com) for the downstream transmission of data over ordinary phone lines at 56 Kbps (thousands of bits per second).

  • splitterless

    Splitterless refers to a type of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) telephone service that does not require the installation of a plain old telephone service splitter at the customer location.

  • petabit

    A petabit is one quadrillion (1015) binary digits and is used in discussing possible volumes of data traffic per second in a large telecommunications network.

  • Bellcore (Bell Communications Research)

    Bellcore (Bell Communications Research) provides certain centralized research and standards coordination for the regional Bell operating companies (RBOC)s.

  • American Wire Gauge (AWG)

    American Wire Gauge (AWG) is a U.S. standard set of non-ferrous wire conductor sizes.

  • encoder

    In digital audio technology, an encoder is a program that converts an audio WAV file into an MP3 file, a highly-compressed sound file that preserves the quality of a CD recording.