List of telephony terminology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a List of telephony terminology and acronyms which relate to telephony networks.

Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[edit] B

• Blue box - a device that was used to bypass the normal long distance call switching tones typically used to obtain free calls.

[edit] C

• call originator - (or calling party, caller or A-party) a person or device that initiates a telephone call by dialling a telephone number.
• call waiting - a system that notifies a caller of another incoming telephone call by sounding a sound in the earpiece.
• called party
• Caller
• calling party
• conference call (multi-party call)
• COCOT

[edit] E

• emergency telephone number
• end instrument
• Engset calculation
• Erlang unit

[edit] F

• fax - (contraction of facsimile) a device connected to the telephone network to enable documents to be scanned and sent to a receiving fax machine.

[edit] H

• Handoff
• Handover
• help desk
• Hunt Group

[edit] I

• infrastructure
• interactive voice response (IVR)

[edit] L

• line
• local loop
• long-distance operator

[edit] O

• operator assistance

[edit] P

• person-to-person
• Pupinization
• Plain old telephone service, or "POTS"

[edit] R

• red telephone box
• Red box
• ringer equivalency number (REN)
• Ringing signal
• rural radio service

[edit] S

• Smartphone
• station-to-station

[edit] T

• Tandem switch
• telemarketing
• telephone
• telephone booth
• telephone call
• telephone card
• telephone directory
• telephone exchange
• telephone tapping
• Teletraffic engineering
• trap and trace
• TWX

[edit] V

• vertical service code
• voicemail

[edit] W

• Western Union
• Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS)
• WATS line
• wireless network
• Wi-Fi

[edit] Z

• Zenith number

[edit] Acronyms

Acronym	Name	Notes
1ESS	Number 1 Electronic Switching System	US
1FR	Flat rate service	US
2G	second-generation mobile telephone
2.5G	Enhanced 2G mobile telephone
3G	third-generation mobile telephone
4WTS	Four-wire termination set	US
ACD	Automatic Call Distribution/Director
ACTS	Advanced Coin Telephone Service	US
ADSL	Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
ANI	Automatic Number Identification	US
AMA	Automatic Message Accounting	US
BOK	Unblocking	UK
CCIS	Common Channel Interoffice Signaling
CID	Caller ID
CLI	Caller Line Identification	Europe
CLID	Caller Line ID	UK
CTI	Computer telephony integration
COSMOS	Wire records
DDCO	Direct Dial Central Office (Opposite of DID)	US
DDD	Direct Distance Dialing	US
DDI	Direct Dialing In	UK
DECT	Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications
DID	Direct Inward Dialing	US
DMS	Digital Multiplex System	Can
DNIS	Dialed Number Identification System	US
DSL	Digital Subscriber Line
DTMF	dual-tone multi-frequency
FDM	Frequency-division multiplexing
GPRS	General Packet Radio Service
GSM	Global system for mobile communications
IDDD	International Direct Distance Dialing	US
ILEC	Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier	US
ISD	International Subscriber Dialling	UK and India
ISDN	Integrated Services Digital Network
IVR	interactive voice response
MDF	Main Distribution Frame
MF	Multi-frequency	US
PABX	Private Automatic Branch eXchange	Europe
PBX	Private Branch eXchange	US
PMBX	Private Manual Branch eXchange	UK
POTS	plain old telephone service
PSTN	Public Switched Telephone Network
RCMAC	Recent Change Memory Administration Center	US
REN	ringer equivalency number
SMS	Short Message Service or text messages
SF	Single Frequency supervision tone (2600)	US
SP Lock	Unlocking	UK
SS7	Signaling System 7
STD	Subscriber trunk dialling	UK and India
T-CXR	T-carrier	US
TAPI	Telephony Application Programming Interface
TSPS	Traffic Service Position System
TXE	Telephone eXchange Electronic	UK
UAX	Unit Automatic eXchange	UK
WAP	Wireless Application Protocol
WATS	Wide Area Telephone Service	US
WTAI	Wireless Telephony Applications Interface
VOIP	Voice over Internet Protocol