Glossary of VoIP Terms

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You will see a lot of terminology while learning about or choosing an Internet telephony provider that you may find confusing. You can take a look at the glossary below to help in understanding the world of voice over Internet protocol.

Glossary

Auto Attendant
This acts as an automated receptionist. Calls made to a certain number will reach a greeting asking which extension number they wish to reach. When the caller enters an extension number, the call is transferred to it. Common term for business VoIP users.

Call Duration
The interval of time between when you take the phone off the hook and when you hang it back up.

Call Hunting
Calling feature made for inbound calls that skip past a busy signal, trying several numbers until the call is answered by the person they are dialing.

Call Setup Time
The amount of time needed to establish a circuit switched call between users. This is measured in second increments.

Clipping
When a loss of speech-signal components occurs that results in initial or end parts of words being dropped. This loss of signal can also occur when two people try to talk at the same exact time.

C-Message Noise
A noise delivered on a channel (or circuit) with a termination, but no signal at the transmitting end as measured through a C-Message filter.

Codec
An algorithm of compression/decompressions that is used for IP telephony and other forms of streaming media.

CTI - Computer Telephony Integration
A reference to telephone systems that are utilizing computer technology.

Dial Tone Delay
The time it takes for you to hear a dial tone from when the phone is first taken off the hook. This time is measured in millisecond increments.

Direct Inward Dialing
This allows incoming calls from a public switched telephone network to reach a specific private network extension (PBX) being used by a business without needing human intervention.

DTMF - Dual Tone Multi Frequency
This is the system set up used by touch tone telephones. DTMF assigns a specific frequency to each key to make it easily identifiable by a microprocessor.

Echo Path Delay
The lapse of time between a transmitted signal and its reflection.

Echo Path Loss
The difference in signal strength occurring between a transmitted signal and its reflection. Echo path loss is dependent upon echo path delay.

Follow Me
A feature that allows your phone calls to follow you by ringing a series of numbers and moving onto the next after a set amount of rings until it finds the phone you are near and answer.

Frame Mutes
The number of and the length of time prolonged clipping events occur during a call where the damaged surface signal goes close to zero. The ratio of frame mutes to overall clipping occurrences is shown by the Frame Muting Ratio indicator.

Gateway
A network device that changes voice and fax calls in real time from the public switched phone network to an IP network.

High Availability
Devices or deployment strategies made to provide access to a fully functioning system during any time of day or night.

IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force
A consortium that was established to standardize and promote the standardization of newer Internet techniques such as VoIP.

IVR - Interactive Voice Response
A type of technology that allows a human caller to interact directly with a database without needing to use human assistance. Telephone banking is an example of IVR based technology.

MGCP - Media Gateway Control Protocol
The standard recognized by the IETF for converting voice signals sent over the public switched telephone network to data packets that can be sent out over the Internet.

MOS - Mean Opinion Score
The measurement of quality of human speech on a network shown as a rating index.

PBX - Private Branch Exchange
A telephone network for the private use of a business or enterprise. By utilizing PBX systems, groups of users can share outside lines and use phone features like call forwarding service.

Post Dial Delay
The amount of time between when the person making a call presses the last digit of a phone number and when the phone on the other end starts to ring. Otherwise referred to as user routing speed.

POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service
The phone service by regular phone companies that has been around as long as you can remember.

Protocol
Established rule for communications between computer systems and multiple devices.

PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network
The different carriers that make up the world telephone network. Including local carriers, long distance carriers and international carriers.

QOS - Quality of Service
The ability of a VoIP network to deliver calls with a minimum delay and have a maximum availability to network users.

Ring Groups
Acts as a rotation if inbound calls. A group of local extensions that ring in unison so that when calls are made to the group number, any available person in the group can pick up the call.

RTP - Real Time Transport Protocol
The Internet protocol used by IP telephony systems and companies to stream voice and video.

SIP - Session Initiation Protocol
The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standard for starting, maintaining and ending a user session involving video, voice, chat, virtual reality, gaming networks, etc.

Speech Power
The measurement of the amount of strength in a received voice signal.

VOIP - Voice over Internet Protocol
The act of sending or receiving voice transmissions (i.e. calls) over an IP (Internet Protocol) network. Also know as Internet Telephony.

Wideband Noise
Noise level that is measured on a wideband IP channel when a signal is absent from the connection.

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