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Resources - Glossary - Publications - Organizations - Wireless Standards - OSI Model

Wireless Networking Glossary

O to 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

0 to 9

10 Base-T

Basic Ethernet at 10 Mbit/sec

100 Base-T

Ethernet running at 100 Mbit/sec

1000 Base-T

Ethernet running at 1,000 Mbit/sec

1G

First Generation. Refers to analog cellular systems

2.4GHz

Unlicensed band. Use includes cordless phones, small appliances, wireless video security systems, data modems.

2G

Second Generation. Refers to digital cellular and PCS wireless systems oriented to voice and low speed data services

2R

Receive, Reshape (an optical signal). See 3R

3G

Third Generation. Refers to the next generation of wireless systems - digital with high speed data. Being standardized by 3GPP and 3GPP2

5.2 Ghz

Unlicensed band. Use includes cordless phones, small appliances, wireless video security systems, data modems.

5.7 Ghz

Unlicensed band. Use includes cordless phones, small appliances, wireless video security systems, data modems.

802.11.x

An IEEE wireless ethernet replacement technology in the ISM band. 802.11b is most commonly implemented and runs at approximately 10 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band. 802.11a runs at 54 Mbps in the 5 GHz band. 802.11g provides 24 Mbps in either band, and provides backward compatibility with 802.11b

802.11.x

Specification for wireless LAN technology; over-the-air interface between wireless client and base station, or between two wireless clients. Provides 1 or 2 Mbps transmission in 2.4 GHz band; uses either frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) or direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) (vs. orthogonal frequency division multiplexing encoding in 802.11a. Developed by IEEE in 1997.

802.11a

Specification for wireless LAN technology; over-the-air interface between wireless client and base station, or between two wireless clients. Provides up to 54 Mbps transmission in 5GHz band; typically flows at 6, 12 or 24 Mbps; uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing encoding scheme (vs. FHSS or DSSS in 802.11) Developed by IEEE in 1999.

802.11b

IEEE Wireless LAN system providing throughput of about 11 Mbps

802.11b

Improvement over 802.11a, increasing bandwidth to 11Mbps. See WiFi.

802.11g

Improvement over 802.11b, increasing bandwidth to 54Mbps. See WiFi.

802.15.x

See Bluetooth

802.16.x

Specification for fixed broadband wireless MANs that use point-to-multipoint architecture. Operates between licensed 10GHz and 66GHz and between 2GHZ and 11GHz (licensed and unlicensed) frequency ranges. aka ‘WirelessMAN’™ or 'Air Interface Standard'. Defines MAC layer that supports multiple physical layer specifications customized for frequency band of use and associated regulations.Supports very high bit rates in both uploading to, downloading from base station up to 30 miles for such services as VoIP, IP connectivity, TDM voice and data. Developed by IEEE in 2002.

802.16a

Iteration of 802.16, allowing devices within 802.16 standard to support lower frequency ranges --2GHz-to-11GHz band—to offer less-expensive services to consumers. Lower frequency spectra will result in lower data rates, making services more likely to target homes or small-to-midsize enterprises.

802.1P Prioritization

Ethernet Layer 2 control for traffic prioritization, dynamic multicast filtering. Supports time-sensitive applications such as VoIP.

802.1Q Tagging

Ethernet Layer 2 controls. Determines how to break large amounts of data so broadcast and multi-cast traffic won't grab more bandwidth than necessary. Establishes standard method for inserting VLAN membership information into Ethernet frames.

8PSK

Phase Shift Keying (PSK) with 8 states, allowing the coding of 8 bit combinations. It is used in EDGE.

A

AAA

Authentication, Authorization and Accounting entity. See Radius and Diameter

AAL

AAL Adaptation Layer

AAL2

ATM Adoption Rate Layer 2. Typically used to transport compressed voice and video traffic.

AAL5

ATM Adoption Rate Layer 5. Typically used to transport signal control and network mgmt data traffic.

A-bis

Interface between BTS and BSC

ABR

Average bit rate

ABR

Available Bit Rate. Hybrid between CBR and VBR. Guarantees bandwidth availability, but only within limits specified by ABR protocol.

AC

Authentication Centre. Stores information for authenticating mobiles, and encrypting their voice and data transmissions

ACC

Analog Control Channel. See FSK

Access gateway

Provides User-to-Network Interface (UNI) such as ISDN.

ACK

Acknowledgement signal

ACP

Adjacent Channel Power

ACRE

Authorization & Call Routing Equipment. Used for routing calls to cellular phones with a 'cordless' mode

AD

Abbreviated Dialing

ADA

Advertising Agent. Provides information to a MS on the services provided by a 3G network

Adjacent Channel Interference

Interference from signals at slightly different frequencies

ADSL

Asymmetric DSL. Bit rates are higher from the network than from the client

ADSL

Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line. Technology for transmitting digital information at high bandwidth on existing phone lines; continuously available, "always on" connection. "Asymmetric" in that it uses most of channel to transmit downstream to user and small part to receive from user. See DSL, SDSL, VDSL.

AES

Advanced Encryption Standard. Supports key sizes of 128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits. Replaces DES.

AFSK

Audio FSK. Communication by changing frequencies in the audio band rather than RF. Used by MF, DTMF

AGW

Access Gateway

AI

Air Interface

Air Interface

Synonym for Radio Interface.

Alert

A command to a mobile to notify the user of an incoming call or message

ALI

Automatic Location Information. A database that contains information about the location of emergency callers

Always On

Indicates a constant connection to an ISP or data service. Compare this with dial-up services, which require user to "make a call" to ISP wherein connection is only active during duration of call.

AM

Amplitude Modulation. See FM

AMI

Alternate Mark Inversion

AMPS

Advanced Mobile Phone Service. TIA analog cellular, and all standards that retain compatibility with it (NAMPS, D-AMPS, CDMA)

AMR

Adaptive MultiRate Voice Coder. Proposed for use in GSM and UMTS. Bit rates vary between 12.2 and 4.75 kbps

AMTA

American Mobile Telecommunications Association

AN

Access Network

analog

Transmission of information through a continuously variable signal. Compare with digital

ANSI

American National Standards Institute. National standards organization that participates in and contributes to ISO standards making. ANSI/EIA standard specifies categories (CAT1-7) of twisted pair cabling systems (wires, junctions and connectors) in terms of data rates that they can sustain. Maintains ASCII, SCSI interface standards.

APCO

Association of Public Safety Communications Officials

API

Application Programming Interface

ARP Table

Address Resolution Protocol Table. Internet Protocol uses this to resolve MAC addresses. See MAC and IP Address.

ARP

IETF Address Resolution Protocol. Binds the physical (MAC) address of a device to an IP address on a local network (e.g. ethernet subnet).

ARQ

Automatic Repeat Request. A method of error correction where the receiver detects errors, and requests retransmission from the sender.

ASCII

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), generally pronounced 'aski', is a character set and a character encoding based on the Roman alphabet as used in modern English and other Western European languages.

ASE

Application Service Element

ASIC

Application Specific Integrated Circuit. A computer chip that is customized for a special purpose application

ASN.1

Abstract Syntax Notation 1. A formal, textual, representation of a protocol message set

Asynchronous

Data is transmitted only when needed. At least one bit is needed to indicate the start of transmission (known as a start bit). Compare with Synchronous

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode, or ATM for short, is a cell relay network protocol which encodes data traffic into small fixed sized (53 byte) cells instead of variable sized packets as in packet-switched networks (such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet)

Attenuation

Dissipation of power of a transmitted signal as it travels over copper wire line.

Authentication

Proving the identity of an individual or application (e.g. MS)

B8ZS

Bipolar 8-Zero Substitution. Encoding method used on T1 circuits that inserts two successive Ones of the same voltage - referred to as bipolar violation - into a signal, whenever eight consecutive Zeros are transmitted.

Backhaul

Transmission of data to a point from which it can be distributed over a network. For example, radio.

Band

Specific range of frequencies in the RF spectrum, which is divided among ranges from very low frequencies (vlf) to extremely high frequencies (ehf). Each band has a defined upper and lower frequency limit.

Bandwidth

Width of range of frequencies that an electronic signal occupies on given transmission medium. Any digital or analog signal has bandwidth.

Baseband

The signal(s) used to modulate the radio channel in the transmitter, and which are recovered by the receiver by demodulating the received radio channel.

B

BCD

Binary Coded Decimal. Digits 0-9 are encoded as 4 bit numbers (nibbles. See TBCD

BER

Bit Error Rate. The fraction of binary bits that are received with the wrong value.

BGP

The border gateway protocol (BGP) is one of the core routing protocols in the Internet. It works by maintaining a table of IP networks or 'prefixes' which designate network reachability between autonomous systems (AS). .

bit

Fundamental unit of information, occupying two discrete states (e.g. 0 or 1)

Bluetooth

A cable-replacement radio protocol for short distance (5-100 meter) networking at moderate speeds (1 Mbps raw bandwidth). Developed by the Bluetooth Consortium and IEEE 802.15

BOC

Bell Operating Company

Border Router

An IP router that connects to routers in other networks using the EBGP protocol.

BPL

Broadband over Power Lines. Broadband delivery method in remote, rural areas not served by DSL or cable-modem services.

Bps

Bits Per Second. Standard measurement of transmission speed.

BPSK

Biphase Shift Keying

BPV

Bi-Polar Violation. Transmission of two one-bits in a PCM channel (e.g. DS0) with the same polarity (e.g. both positive or both negative). May be deliberately used to indicate all-zero octets. See B8ZS and HDB3

Bridge

Connects LANs that use same protocol (e.g., Ethernet or Token Ring).

Bridging Table

Bridges learn which addresses reside on which network and develop such a table. Subsequent messages are then forwarded to right network.

Broadband

Refers to telecommunication in which a wide band of frequencies is available to transmit information. Information can be multiplexed, sent on many different frequencies or channels within the band concurrently. Sometimes referred to as wideband. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable TV are broadband services in the downstream direction.

BTTH

Broadband To The Home

Burst

Specific amount of data sent or received in one intermittent operation. Measured by Burst Rate; can be contrasted with streamed, paced or continuous.

BWA

Broadband Wireless Access. Can provide more capacity than wired broadband (cable and DSL) by extending fiber optic networks over airwaves. Rapid deployment of broadband network with radio base stations mounted on buildings or towers to create high-capacity wireless access system from ground up.

byte

An 8 bit unit of data storage. See octet

C

C/I

Carrier to Interference Ratio

CA

Certificate/Certification Authority

Cable Modem

Modulator-demodulator at subscriber locations for conveying data communications on cable TV system, via high-speed Internet connection. Technically, a broadband network bridge. Connects subscriber PC to cable TV line and receives data at ~ 1.5 Mbps, up to 10Megabits per second. This data rate is higher than prevalent 28.8 and 56 Kbps of telephone modems; up-to-128 Kbps of ISDN; and roughly same as data rate available to subscribers of DSL telephone service.

Cable TV

Transmits TV signals, incl. those that originate at over-the-air broadcast stations, to subscribers on a wired network. Also a way to interact with the World Wide Web and other multimedia information and entertainment services. See CATV.

CAP

Competitive Access Provider

CAPEX

Capital Expenditures

CAR

Committed Access Rate. An IP method to achieve higher QoS

Carnivore

US FBI ISP wiretapping box, including a processor and removable hard drive to capture internet sessions (email, web access etc.).

CARS

Community Antenna Relay Service. FCC-designated 12.75-12.95 GHz microwave frequency bands for transporting television signals by cable industry.

CAT1 wiring

Maximum data rate: up to 1 Mbps (1 MHz) analog voice (POTS) Usual application(s): ISDN Basic Rate Interface, doorbell wiring.See ANSI.

CAT2 wiring

Maximum data rate: 4 Mbps Usual application(s): IBM Cabling System for Token Ring networks. See ANSI.

CAT3 wiring

Ordinary telephone twisted pair wiring, connects to RJ11 jacks. Along with CAT5, most popular use. Maximum data rate: 16 Mbps Usual application(s): Voice and data on 10BASE-T Ethernet. See ANSI.

CAT5 wiring

Ethernet wiring. Along with CAT3, most popular wiring. Maximum data rate: 100 Mbps / 1000 Mbps (4 pair) Usual application(s): 100 Mbps TPDDI / 155 Mbps ATM Gigabit Ethernet.

CATPT

CDMA UIM Card Application Toolkit Protocol Teleservice

CATV

Community Antenna Television. Transmits TV signals, incl. those that originate at over-the-air broadcast stations, to subscribers on a wired network. Origin of cable TV networks.

CBR

Constant Bit Rate. Common form of ATM - QoS categories. Standard for business grade voice services by MSOs. See ABR and VBR.

CCT

Circuit

CD

Collision Detection

CDMA

Code Division Multiple Access. Form of wireless multiplexing, in which data can be sent over multiple frequencies simultaneously, optimizing use of available bandwidth. See Mobile Wireless, TDMA.

Cellular

Short-wave analog or digital telecommunication in which subscriber has wireless connection from mobile telephone to relatively nearby transmitter. Transmitter's span of coverage is called a cell.

CELP

Code Excited Linear Prediction

CENELEC

European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization

CGI

Common Gateway Interface

CHAP

PPP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol. Use of Radius to authenticate a terminal without sending security data in the clear. Compare with PAP

CIR

Committed Information Rate. Service guarantee from frame relay provider of a certain end-to-end minimum bandwidth.

Circuit-switched data

Data transmitted over a dedicated (although usually virtual) channel. The destinatioin address is implicitly defined by the (virtual) circuit that is selected

CLEC

Competitive LEC. A new entrant in a market previously limited to one carrier. Some wireless carriers may qualify for this designation

CLI

Command Line Interface

CLLI

Common Language Location Identifier. An ASCII identifier of a telephone switch or calling area.

CLNP

Connectionless Network Protocol

CLNS

Connectionless Network Service

CNAME

Canonical Name. A basic Domain name that may be pointed to by multiple aliases

CO

Central Office

Coax/fiber converter

Device used in pairs to convert a physical-layer signal between Coax and Fiber Optic, extend coax signal.

Coaxial Cable

Copper cable used by CATV companies connecting community antenna with service subscribers. Sometimes used by telephone companies to connect central office to poles located near subscribers. Also widely installed for use in business and corporation Ethernet and other types of LAN. Alternatives are twisted pair and optical fiber.

Co-channel Interference

Interference from other signals using the same radio channel

codec

Voice coder and decoder. See vocoder and Voice Coder

Contention Level

aka Oversubscription. Usually expressed as a ratio, the bandwidth of an individual user multiplied by the number of users on a link, divided by the bandwidth of that link. Usually measured at aggregation point of broadband gateway. For example: with 400 users, each with 512Kbps access rate, aggregated onto a 4.096Mbps link, contention level is (400 * 512) / 4096 = 50:1.

CPE

Customer Premises Equipment

CRC

Cyclic Redundancy Code (or check). Included in many digital protocols to check for errors in transmitted messages

CRTP

Compressed Real-Time Transport Protocol. Provides compression of RTP, UDP and IP headers.

Cryptosync

Externally-provided synchronizing information for cryptoalgorithms (ciphers) that allows an encryptor at one end to uniquely encrypt each block of content into ciphertext, and yet allows a decryptor at the other end to properly decrypt the ciphertext to yield the original plaintext. Cryptosync often takes the form of the output of a binary counter

CSC

Customer Service Center

CSU

Channel Service Unit. Unit that interfaces between the telephone company and a private network

CTCP

Compressed TCP. Provides compression of TCP and IP headers.

CUG

Closed User Group. Calls are restricted to within the group

CWDM

Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing. Optical technology used to increase bandwidth over existing fiber optic backbones. See DWDM.

D

D/L

Downlink (e.g. from base station to mobile). Compare with U/L.

DACS

Digital Cross-Connect System

Dark fiber

Unused, laid fiber.

Datagram

Unit of data.

dB

Decibel. 10 times the logarithm of the value in base 10

DB9M

Connector used for RS-232 connections and for several video interfaces on IBM-compatible computers.

dBm

Decibels referenced to one milliwatt

DBS

Digital Broadcast Satellite or Direct Broadcast Satellite (e.g. DirectTV, EchoStar)

DCE

Data Communications Equipment (i.e. a computer)

DCS

Digital Cross-Connect System

DCS(3)

European PCS frequencies in the 1800 MHz range.

DDM

Data Description Method

DEA

US Drug Enforcement Agency

Demux

See Mux.

DES

Data Encryption Standard. Uses private key algorithm; vulnerable to brute-force attacks because of small, 56-bit size of key. Note: National Institutes of Standards and Technology considers DES obsolete, replaced with 'Advanced Encryption Standard'. See AES.

DHCP server

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server. Automatically configures network devices; has server capabilities. Public or private IP addresses may be assigned on per-interface basis; multiple private addresses may be assigned to each publicly registered address through use of NAT.

DID

Direct Inward Dialing. Directs all calls to a block of numbers to a PBX

digital

Transmission of information through a signal that can take on only certain discrete values (e.g. bits with values 0 or 1). Compare with analog

Disconnection

The end of a call. Not to be confused with termination of a call or the release of a trunk

DL

Downlink. Radio link from network 'down' to terminal. Compare with UL

DLC

Digital Loop Carrier. A single digital facility (e.g. T1 or T3) carrying multiple lines to a business or other large customer

DLCI

Data Link Connection/Circuit Identifier

DLEC

Data Local Exchange Carrier. Delivers high-speed access to the Internet and not voice.

DN

Domain Name (e.g. cnp-wireless.com).

DNIC

Data network identification code

DNIS

Dialed Number Identification Service. Identifies the called (not calling) number. Only useful when multiple numbers terminate at the same location (e.g. a regular phone number, 1-800 and 1-900 number). Contrast with CNIP

DNS

Domain Name System. Globally distributed database that matches Web site URLs to numerical IP addresses. Governs routing of all Internet traffic.

DOA

Dead On Arrival

DoC

US Department of Commerce

DOJ

US Department of Justice

Domain

A portion of the internet (e.g. cnp-wireless.com)

DPSK

Differential PSK

DQPSK

Differential Quadrature PSK

DRAC

Dynamic Resource Allocation Control

DRM

Digital Rights Management

Drop

Cable and hardware from tap to subscriber. 'Drop Cable' is 330 feet or less of coaxial cable

Dry pair wires

Building wires not in use.

DS0

Digital Signal Level 0. A 64 kbps digital link used to carry a single voice conversation or signaling traffic for multiple calls/trunks. In ANSI networks, 8 kbps is usually reserved for in-band signaling (on-hook/off-hook etc.), reducing the bandwidth to 56 kbps

DS1

Digital Signal Level 1. A 1.544 Mbps signaling link carrying 24 DS0 channels

DS1C

Digital Signal Level 1C. A 3.152 Mbps signaling link carrying 48 DS0 channels

DS2

Digital Service, Level 2. 6.312 Mbps. Carries 96 DS0 channels (4 DS1 channels)

DS3

Digital Service, Level 3. 44.736 Mbps. Carries 672 DS0 channels (28 DS1 channels)

DSA

Digital Signature Algorithm

DSCP

Differentiated Services Code Point. In QoS, modification of (ToS) type of service byte. Six bits of this byte allocated for use as DSCP field, where each DSCP specifies particular per-hop behavior that is applied to a packet.

DSF

Dispersion Shifted Fiber

DSI

Digital Speech Interpolation

DSL

SHDSL, ADSL, SDSL, VDSL - Digital Subscriber Line. Foundation is the 4-wire telephone cable standard throughout North America. Technology for transmitting digital information at high bandwidth on existing phone lines; continuously available, "always on" connection.

DSLAM

Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer.   product description; network multiplexing device that receives signals from multiple customer DSL connections and puts them on a high-speed backbone. May connect DSL lines with some combination of ATM, frame relay or Internet Protocol networks. Enables phone company to offer business or residential users fastest phone line technology (DSL) with the fastest backbone network technology (ATM). Top speeds 1.5M bit/sec, but at a much lower cost than a T-1 or ISDN connection.

DSP

Digital Signal Processing/Processor

DSU

Digital Service Unit. Interface between the terminal equipment (DTE) and the service provider's facilities

DTE

Data Terminal Equipment. RS-232C interface used by computer to exchange data with modem or other serial device. See RS-232C.

DTMF

Dual Tone Multifrequency. Tone signaling used by phones

DTSS

Dynamic Time-Synchronized Spreading

DTX

Discontinuous Transmission. A mobile only transmits when the user is talking. This saves battery life, but can introduce some choppiness into conversations

Dual-band

A mobile that can support two different frequency ranges. Compare with Dual-mode

Dual-mode

A mobile that can support two different technologies. Compare with Dual-band

Duplex

Both ends of communication can send and receive signals at the same time. Also known as full-duplex communication. ‘Half-duplex’ is also bi-directional communication, but signals can only flow in one direction at a time.

DWDM

Dense Wave Division Multiplexing/Dynamic Wavelength Division Multiplexing. Optical technology used to increase bandwidth over existing fiber optic backbones. See CWDM.

 

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