Even experts need occasional help with industry terms. For your convenience, we've combined glossaries from several sources to list commonly used telecommunications and virtual phone system terms.
ANSI
Acronym for the American National Standards Institute. Founded in 1918, ANSI is a voluntary organization composed of over 1,300 members (including all the large computer companies) that creates standards for the computer industry.
Automated Attendant
The first thing callers hear when they call your toll free number. It is usually recorded by you or many of the plans have professional voices you can hire to create them for you. This initial greeting tells people which button to push... Push 1 for Billing, Push 2 for Technical Support, etc.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
Used in the process of distributing calls to individual extensions or groups of extensions and for queuing callers if all extensions are busy.
Automatic Number Identification (ANI)
A telephone company service that provides the telephone number of the calling party electronically to the called party. It is a more sophisticated version of caller ID.
Call Announce
When a call is forwarded to you, a computerized voice will announce the call for you and ask what you would like to do with it - answer it, send it to voice mail, forwarded it to someone else, etc.
Call Distribution
The process by which inbound 800 number calls are directed to the information, location or service they are looking for.
Call Reports
A detailed list of call usage accessible online or via email.
Call Routing
The system that determines how inbound calls to various 800 telephone numbers are handled. For example, a caller to a specific vanity phone number might be distributed to a specific location, a voice mailbox, or an automated message.
Caller ID
A telephony network service that transmits the caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment during the ringing signal or when the call is being set up but before the call is answered.
Caller Identification (CID)
A phone service feature that allows the recipient of a phone call to see the phone number of the originating caller (person).
Calling Line Identification (CLI)
A service available on digital phone networks that tells the person being called which number is calling them. The central office equipment identifies the phone number of the caller, enabling information about the caller to be sent along with the call itself. Synonymous with ANI (Automatic Number Identification).
Calling Line Identification Presentation (CLIP)
Feature enabling a called subscriber to recognise the calling party by his or her number on the telephone display before the call is even established.
Calling Line Identity (CLID)
This allows the caller's telephone number to be displayed when the call is received.
Email
Short for Electronic mail. Mail composed and transmitted on a computer system or network.
Email Address
This is where electronic mail is received. It is a combination of a username and a hostname, such as 'yourname@alamedanet.net' or 'someone.else@hotmail.com'
Fax Machine
Abbreviation of facsimile machine, a device that can send or receive pictures and text over a telephone line.
Fax Modem
A device you can attach to a personal computer that enables you to transmit and receive electronic documents as faxes. A fax modem is like a regular modem except that it is designed to transmit documents to a fax machine or to another fax modem.
Fax Server
A specialized network server that can send and receive faxes on behalf of the user community that it supports; receive incoming faxes from phone lines and direct them to users across the network as well as accept outgoing faxes across the network and redirect them over a telephone line.
FDDI
Abbreviation of Fiber Distributed Data Interface, a set of ANSI protocols for sending digital data over fiber optic cable. FDDI networks are token-passing networks, and support data rates of up to 100 Mbps (100 million bits) per second. FDDI networks are typically used as backbones for wide-area networks.
Hosted
A software, functional or network system provided by a third party who owns the underlying resource and provides access on a subscription basis determined by usage and service levels.
ISDN
Abbreviation of integrated services digital network, an international communications standard for sending voice, video, and data over digital telephone lines or normal telephone wires. ISDN supports data transfer rates of 64 Kbps (64,000 bits per second).
IVR
Short for interactive voice response, a telephony technology in which someone uses a touch-tone telephone to interact with a database to acquire information from or enter data into the database. IVR technology does not require human interaction over the telephone as the user's interaction with the database is predetermined by what the IVR system will allow the user access to.
Legs
Used to describe a line or connection. All connected calls to a toll free number require two legs. The first leg is from the caller to a toll free number and the second leg is from the toll free service provider to your designated number.
Pager
One-way communications device in which the intended receiver is alerted to receive a message.
PBX
Short for Private Branch Exchange. A small, privately-owned version of the phone company's larger central switching office.
PDF
Portable Document Format. Printer friendly format which to a large degree preserves the document's original appearance. Requires installation of Adobe Acrobat Reader.
POTS
Short for plain old telephone service, which refers to the standard telephone service that most homes use. The POTS network is also called the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
PSTN
Short for Public Switched Telephone Network, which refers to the international telephone system based on copper wires carrying analog voice data. Telephone service carried by the PSTN is often called plain old telephone service (POTS).
RespOrg
Short for Responsible Organization. If you have a toll free number in the USA and/or Canada, your toll free number is controlled by a RespOrg. The RespOrg is the organization responsible for controlling and maintaining your toll free number (A.K.A. your toll free service provider).
SMS
Short for Short Messaging Service. Similar to paging, SMS is a service for sending short text messages to mobile phones.
SMS/800
The central government depository for all toll-free numbers.
SOHO
Short for Small Office Home Office.
TIF
Short for Tag Image File. TIFF is supported in almost every image and word processing software.
Toll-Free Number Portability
The ability for the subscriber to transport its toll-free number from one service provider to another without the need for a number change.
Toll-Free Numbers
Toll-free numbers are numbers that begin with one of the following three-digit codes: 800, 888, 877, or 866. Toll-free numbers allow callers to reach businesses and/or individuals without being charged for the call. The charge for using a toll-free number is paid by the called party (the toll-free subscriber) instead of the calling party.
Toll-Free Service
A telecommunications service for which the dialing party incurs no toll charges.
Vanity Number
Toll-free number that also spells a name, word, acronym or phrase.
Virtual
Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network.
Voice Mail
A service that works like an answering machine and allows callers to leave a message. This message can be reviewed, copied, stored, annotated and forwarded to one or many people.
VoIP
Acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, a category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN.
