Glossary of Terms

A plain-English glossary of the telecommunications, internet, VoIP, cloud telephony and number-porting terms you may come across when using Tronic services. Terms marked with a link point to the relevant Tronic product or guide.

0–9

1300 Number — A national business phone number where the cost of the call is shared between the caller and the business. Calls reach you anywhere in Australia on a single memorable number. See 1300 & 1800 numbers.

1800 Number — A toll-free national business number that is free for the caller, with the business paying for inbound calls. See 1300 & 1800 numbers.

3CX — A popular software-based IP PBX (phone system) that Tronic supplies, hosts and supports, delivering calls, video, chat and apps on desk phones, desktop and mobile. See 3CX.

G.711 / G.729 — Common VoIP voice codecs. G.711 is uncompressed for the best quality but uses more bandwidth; G.729 is compressed to use less bandwidth at a small quality cost.

A

ACD: Automatic Call Distribution — Routes incoming calls to a group of agents or extensions based on rules such as availability, skills or round-robin. The engine behind call queues and contact centres.

ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line — A technology for the delivery of digital data over existing twisted pair copper subscriber lines (normal phone lines). The analogue telephone service shares the copper with ADSL signals. The data rate is asymmetric, which means downstream rates are significantly faster than upstream rates.

AI Voice Agent — An artificial-intelligence powered virtual receptionist that answers calls, understands natural speech, and completes tasks such as bookings, FAQs and call routing without a human operator. See Tronic Cloud AI.

Analogue Line — A traditional copper telephone line that carries voice as a continuously varying electrical signal, as opposed to digital or VoIP.

ATA: Analogue Telephone Adapter — A small device that connects a traditional analogue phone or fax machine to a VoIP network.

Auto Attendant — An automated voice menu (“press 1 for sales”) that greets and directs callers without a receptionist. Also known as an IVR.

B

Bandwidth — The maximum data rate of a connection, measured in bits per second (bps) or megabits per second (Mbps). More bandwidth supports more simultaneous calls and faster internet.

Basic Access Lines — Local access connection between a customer's premises and a carrier's local switch.

BLF: Busy Lamp Field — A handset feature with buttons that show the real-time status (free, busy or ringing) of other extensions for quick transfers.

Bluetooth — A very low powered consumer electronics standard supported by many vendors as a standard way of connecting consumer electronics without cables.

bps: bits per second — A measure of data speed for transmission carriers. The speed in bps is equal to the number of bits transmitted or received each second.

Broadband — A generic term for high bandwidth capacity internet. Any internet service with the capacity to deliver digital data at hundreds or thousands of bits per second would be considered broadband.

C

Call Queue — Holds incoming calls in line and distributes them to available agents, usually with hold music and position announcements.

Call Recording — Capturing and securely storing call audio for compliance, training or quality assurance.

CAN: Customer Access Network — The customer end of the telephone network. The CAN is the part of the telephone network that allows telephone users to connect to the local switch or exchange. It is also known as the local loop and largely consists of pairs of twisted copper wires.

Carriage Service Provider — An organisation that provides a telecommunications service to the public using carrier network infrastructure.

Carrier — The holder of a telecommunications carrier licence in force under the Telecommunications Act 1997. The provider of telephone services to the customer.

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access — A spread spectrum technique that can be used in a variety of wireless delivered services, including mobile phones. CDMA employs a bandwidth much larger than the original signal. Each signal is uniquely encoded and decoded and allows many signals to occupy the same spectrum.

Channel — A single concurrent call path on a SIP trunk or phone system. The number of channels sets how many calls you can make or receive at the same time.

CIR: Committed Information Rate — Commonly used in Frame Relay for a data rate the customer wants always available and is prepared to pay for.

Circuit Switching — When a call is made between two parties, the connection is maintained for the entire duration of the call. Connecting two points in both directions, the connection is called a circuit. This is the foundation of the PSTN.

CLI: Calling Line Identification — Identifies the number of the calling party's line.

Cloud PBX / Hosted PBX — A business phone system hosted in the provider's data centre rather than on-site, with users connecting over the internet. See Tronic Cloud.

CNAM: Caller ID Name — The business or person name displayed alongside a calling number on the recipient's handset.

CND: Calling Number Display — A telephone feature which displays the caller's number.

CNI: Calling Number Identification — As in CND.

Codec — Software that encodes and decodes voice into digital packets for transmission (for example G.711, G.729 or Opus). The codec affects call quality and how much bandwidth a call uses.

Concurrent Calls — The number of calls that are active at the same time, limited by your channels or SIP trunk capacity.

CPE: Customer Premises Equipment — End-user equipment located on the customer's premises rather than the provider's premises. Telephone handsets, modems and personal computers are all examples of CPE.

CPU: Central Processor Unit — Central processor of a computer or exchange.

CTI: Computer Telephony Integration — Links a phone system to business software such as a CRM for screen-pops, click-to-dial and automatic call logging.

D

DECT: Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications — A technology for short range cordless telephony in environments where there are large numbers of users, such as offices.

DID / DDI: Direct Inward Dialling — A phone number that routes directly to a specific user or extension without going through a receptionist.

Dial-Up — In the context of internet use, it refers to using the telephone network to dial up a link to an internet service provider (ISP). The link is only maintained for the duration of the connection.

Digital Compression — Technology which dramatically decreases the bandwidth requirements for data-rich multimedia signals, which ultimately lowers the cost of digital transmission.

DNS: Domain Name Server — Resolves names and IP addresses. DNS servers in the internet implement a hierarchical name space that allows sites freedom in assigning machine names and addresses.

Domain Name — The human-readable address of a website, such as tronic.com.au, which DNS translates to a server's IP address.

DSL: Digital Subscriber Line — A family of technologies that provide digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network.

DSLAM: Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer — A network device located in a telephone exchange that receives signals from multiple customer Digital Subscriber Line connections and puts the signal on a high speed backbone line using multiplexing techniques.

E

E.164 — The international standard format for telephone numbers, written with a country code and no spaces, for example +61399705220.

Echo Cancellation — Processing that removes echo from a call so both parties hear clear audio.

ETSI — European Technical Standards Institute.

Exchange — Network node where various numbers and types of communication lines are switched by the telecommunications user or network operator. Exchanges operate at local, trunk and international levels.

Extension — A short internal number that identifies a user or device on a PBX, allowing quick internal dialling.

F

Failover — Automatic rerouting of calls or data to a backup path when the primary connection fails, keeping your business running during an outage.

Fibre Optics — A means of transmitting digital information over a glass strand of fibre. Laser light pulses are sent over the glass. Though only as thick as human hair, each fibre optic strand has far greater capacity or bandwidth to carry information than copper wire.

Firewalls — Firewalls sit between the internal network (LAN) and the external (internet) network. Their purpose is to shield the network from unwanted entry. They monitor packets and addresses of passing traffic and may pass or block certain addresses or transaction types as a security management tool.

Fixed Wireless — Broadband delivered over radio signal between a tower and a fixed antenna at the premises, used where fibre or cable is not available.

Frame Relay — A telecommunication service designed for data transmission for intermittent traffic between local area networks and between endpoints in a wide area network. Frame relay puts data in a variable size unit called a frame and leaves any necessary error correction up to the end points, thus speeding up the overall data transmission.

FTTP / FTTN / FTTC — NBN connection types — Fibre to the Premises, Node or Curb — describing how far the fibre runs toward your building before copper or other media takes over.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol — Process for transferring large computer files over the internet.

G

Gbps: Gigabits per second — One thousand million bits per second.

Geographic Number — A landline number tied to a specific area or region, such as an 03 number for Victoria.

GHz: Gigahertz — One billion hertz.

GSM: Global System for Mobile Telephony — The mobile technology originally selected to replace analogue and capable of providing enhanced features and data transmission.

GPRS: General Packet Radio Standard — A packet-oriented mobile data standard on the GSM network, allowing data to be sent and received across a mobile network.

H

Handset — A desk or cordless IP phone used to make and receive calls on a VoIP or PBX system.

HDSL: High Capacity Digital Subscriber Line — A symmetric version of DSL, with an equal amount of bandwidth available in both directions. For this reason the maximum data rate is lower than for ADSL.

Hertz (Hz) — Rate of frequency in cycles per second, used to measure sound, electricity and radio signals.

Hunt Group / Ring Group — A set of extensions that ring together or in sequence so a call is answered by the first available person.

I

IAP: Internet Access Provider — A wholesaler of internet bandwidth and related services to ISPs.

IP Address — A unique numeric address that identifies a device on a network.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network — A legacy digital phone line technology now being retired across Australia, commonly replaced by SIP trunks. See porting to Tronic.

ISP: Internet Service Provider — A company that provides customers with access to the internet.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response — An automated voice menu that interacts with callers via keypad or speech to route calls or let them self-serve.

J

Jitter — Variation in the arrival time of voice packets that can degrade call quality. It is minimised with Quality of Service (QoS).

K

Kbps: Kilobits per second — A measure of data rate equal to one thousand bits per second.

L

LAN: Local Area Network — A network contained within a single site, such as an office.

Latency — The delay, measured in milliseconds, for data to travel across a network. High latency causes lag and talk-over on calls.

LNP: Local Number Portability — The ability to keep your phone number when changing carriers, known as porting. See the porting terms below and our porting guide.

Local Number — See Geographic Number.

M

MAC Address — A unique hardware identifier for a network device, used to automatically provision IP phones.

Mbps: Megabits per second — One million bits per second; the common unit for broadband speeds.

MMS: Multimedia Messaging Service — Picture, audio and video messaging, an extension of SMS.

N

NAT: Network Address Translation — Lets multiple devices share one public IP address. It can interfere with VoIP unless handled with techniques such as STUN or a session border controller.

NBN: National Broadband Network — Australia's wholesale broadband network, delivering internet over fibre, fixed wireless and satellite. See Tronic Internet.

Number Porting — Moving an existing phone number from one carrier to another. See the porting (LNP) terms below.

O

On-Premises PBX — A phone system physically installed and maintained at the customer's site, as opposed to a cloud-hosted PBX.

Opus — A modern, high-quality, low-bandwidth audio codec widely used for VoIP and WebRTC calls.

P

Packet Loss — When voice or data packets fail to arrive at their destination, causing dropouts or robotic audio on calls.

PBX: Private Branch Exchange — A business phone system that manages internal and external calls, extensions and features such as transfers, queues and voicemail.

Presence — Real-time availability status (available, busy, away) shared across a unified communications system.

Provisioning — Automatically configuring a handset or service with the correct settings so it is ready to use out of the box.

PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network — The traditional circuit-switched public telephone network built on copper lines.

Q

QoS: Quality of Service — Network settings that prioritise voice traffic over other data so calls stay clear even when the connection is busy.

R

RTP: Real-time Transport Protocol — Carries the live voice or media stream of a VoIP call. SRTP is the encrypted version.

Ring Group — See Hunt Group.

S

SBC: Session Border Controller — A security and interworking device at the edge of a VoIP network that controls and protects SIP traffic.

Sender ID — The alphanumeric or numeric name shown as the “from” on a business SMS, now subject to the Australian SMS Sender ID Register. See SMS messaging.

SIP: Session Initiation Protocol — The signalling protocol that sets up, manages and ends VoIP calls.

SIP Trunk — A virtual phone line delivered over the internet that connects a phone system to the telephone network, replacing physical ISDN or analogue lines. See Tronic SIP Trunks.

SLA: Service Level Agreement — A documented commitment to service performance, such as uptime targets and support response times.

SMS: Short Message Service — Text messaging. Tronic offers business and bulk SMS with sender ID support. See SMS messaging.

Softphone — A software phone application that runs on a computer or mobile device instead of a physical desk handset.

Static IP — A fixed public IP address that does not change between sessions, useful for hosting and remote access.

STUN / TURN — Protocols that help VoIP and WebRTC traffic traverse NAT and firewalls so calls connect reliably.

T

TLS: Transport Layer Security — Encryption used to secure SIP signalling and web traffic from eavesdropping.

Toll-Free Number — A number such as an 1800 number where calls are free to the caller and paid for by the business.

Trunk — A connection that carries multiple calls at once between a phone system and the network. See SIP Trunk.

U

UC: Unified Communications — Voice, video, chat, presence and conferencing combined into a single platform.

Uptime — The percentage of time a service is available and operational, often defined in an SLA.

V

VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol — Making phone calls over the internet rather than traditional copper lines. It is the foundation of cloud telephony. See telephony solutions.

Voicemail-to-Email — Delivers voicemail messages as audio files, and optionally text transcripts, straight to your email inbox.

W

WAN: Wide Area Network — A network that spans multiple sites or geographic locations.

WebRTC: Web Real-Time Communication — Technology that enables voice and video calls directly inside a web browser without plugins.

Porting (LNP) terms

Terms you may come across when moving numbers between carriers. See our Porting to Tronic guide for the full process.