Jump to:
A – B – C – D – F – G – I
A
ALI
Automatic Location Identification is a system that queries a secure database on behalf of a PSAP for the registered 911 address associated with the phone number dialed by a person seeking to reach emergency services. The address is immediately relayed by the operator to the relevant first responders. The address you provide when initially setting up your account will be registered by Telebroad in the ALI database. It is important you keep your address up to date. Change of address is possible from your Telebroad account's web interface or by contacting customer service.
ATA adapter
Analog Telephone Adapter is a device that connects traditional analog telephones and fax machines to a VoIP network. It allows users and companies to keep using existing analog devices while avoiding having to maintain two telephone networks (standard and VoIP). A typical ATA can handle two lines or devices. For more lines and features you would need to consider a VoIP Gateway. Read more about ATAs and VoIP Gateways here.
A2P Messaging (or A2P SMS traffic)
A2P stands for application-to-person. It is a type of one-way automated text messaging communication where the sender is an application or a computer program and the recipient is a person (consumer). It is mostly used by companies and organizations for alerts and reminders, short marketing messages, special offers, and access verification codes.
A2P can also mean agent-to-person. This refers to any agent who sends messages to consumers on behalf of a company, even if there is no automation involved.
If you deal with any kind of A2P messaging, you should familiarize yourself with the CTIA guidelines for SMS best practices.
See also P2P Messaging.
B
Busy Lamp Field (BLF)
A set of illuminated buttons on a physical phone that provide a visual indication for busy (usually red light) and available (usually green light) lines and extensions on the PBX system. The buttons can also be pushed to dial an available line or extension. The TeleConsole has software settings to set up BLF. You can read about this and how it is different from speed dial here.
C
Caller ID
A telephony service that allows a recipient of a phone call to see the caller’s details, on his phone screen or VoIP software, before picking up the call. Usually, both the phone number and name of the callers are provided and with PBX systems it is also possible to add the details of the extension that transferred the call.
Caller ID originated before the days of digital communication and with traditional landlines the caller ID is always identical to the actual phone number of the caller. However, with VoIP and PBX systems alternative numbers can be applied as the caller ID which serves to better identify specific departments, products, or individuals.
A caller usually has the option of blocking (hiding) his Caller ID information by dialing a specific code or with a relevant software option. The different versions of Telebroad's TeleConsole let you block your caller ID directly from the dialing screen or the settings screen. Additionally, the phone system administrator can enable a call screening feature for lines and numbers where a caller is asked to record his name, even if his caller ID is blocked, before the call is passed on to an agent or a user. See also Outbound Caller ID.
Call Detail Record (CDR)
A grouping of data fields in a report that provides information about the properties of the calls dialed or received by a user (without including the actual call content). Typical CDR details include data and time the call started, duration of the entire, actual talk time, caller and recipient phone numbers, caller and recipient phone numbers type, the direction of the call, status of the call, and more.
CDRs are also available for SMS messages. CDRs are usually used by phone companies for billing purposes and include a data field for the cost of the call or per-minute cost. For the Telebroad administrator, however, CDRs are more useful for examining call history reports and call flows (the latter does include audio recordings of certain call segments). These are not actual CDRs, but an interpretation of their data. Viewing an actual CDR report is possible using our relevant API request.
Call Flow and Call Segment (Leg)
In a non-PBX phone system, the caller experiences a direct non-interactive connection with his intended party (the call may be routed through different switches, but this is transparent to the caller.) In a PBX system, however, a caller has to navigate and interact with menus, directories, queues, and other destinations to reach his intended party. Each destination he navigates or gets routed to by the system is called a Call Segment or a Call Leg.
The progress of the calls between these destinations (the collection of segments) is referred to as the Call Flow. For example, when a caller arrives at the IVR he is at the 1st segment (leg) of the call flow, when he makes a selection and gets routed to a support department he is at the 2nd segment (leg), and when an agent answers the call it is the 3rd segment, etc.
Call agents are usually not concerned with Call Flow. Call flow information is much more important to call center managers or phone administrators and can be accessed with the call logs function, including any relevant recording in either the ACD Panel or Analytics or by sending this API request.
Circuit Switching
A network connection method where a dedicated wiring path is established between a source and a destination before the transmission occurs. Circuit switching is traditionally used with analog telephone communication. A continuous wire connection is created in the telephone exchanges once a call from one telephone is picked up by the recipient.
While the connection is in session the only data that travels on it is between the two connected phones. The data is sent continuously and in sequence, unlike the divided data in Packet Switching. This guarantees call quality and reliability at the expense of lesser network capacity (since lines can't be shared).
Codec
A data conversion software or hardware that stands for coder-decoder. It converts data from one form to another and then back to the original form. In VoIP communication, speech (analog data) is converted to digital data before it gets sent to the recipient where it is converted back to speech on his phone, computer, or mobile device. Codecs usually also perform compression of the data to reduce transmission times. There is a tradeoff between the amount of compression and data loss, although the resulting reduction in the call quality is not meant to be perceptible in most situations. VoIP codecs have a measurement of minimal network speed that will support their acceptable performance. With the mobile version of the TeleConsole you can select between three popular codecs by changing the call quality under the local settings section. See more details for Android or iOS.
D
Dial Patterns
The format and length of the sequence of digits required for making an internal or external call. An internal extension usually has three digits while external numbers are ten digits long. The latter may be eleven digits or longer if the pattern configuration on the server requires a prefix to obtain an outside line or for connecting to different area codes. Rules can also be set on a serve or dialing applications to remove prefixes or simplify a pattern for improved compatibility.
DECT
Cordless phones are also known as DECT phones. DECT stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology. The DECT technology allows a wireless connection and data transmission between a handset/DECT phone and a DECT base station. The base station provides connectivity to the public phone network (PSTN) or, in the case of VoIP, to your local IP/SIP network. Business-grade base stations can handle multiple accounts and handsets/phones. Some base station models can be linked to other base stations to extend the reception range. Yealink DECT phones support a useful intercom feature to message other handsets registered to the same base station.
DSS
DSS stands for Direct Station Selection. It is a type of a soft key on a business desk phone that can be programmed by the user to perform a certain function. It is commonly used for BLF/Speed Dial functions but can be assigned to do almost any function on the phone such as transfer, intercom, forward, park and retrieve, call return, etc.
DTMF
A telephone technology, also known as Touch-Tone, for dialing numbers or making selections from an IVR system where each button on the keypad generates and is identified by a specific audio signal. With traditional telephones systems (POTS) the DTMF signals are transmitted on the same copper wire that carries the conversation. This is called in-band transmission and it is also used in VoIP systems where the DTMF signals are packaged with the audio data. However, unless an uncompressed codec is used, data compression and network interference can result in the loss of the signals. With VoIP, the preferred DTMF delivery method, called out-of-band, sends the signals separately from the actual audio stream.
F
FXS
FXS stands for Foreign Exchange Subscriber. It is a type of analog telephony port that typically, as a wall socket, delivers analog phone signals, call ringing, and electric current from the phone company's exchange office (the PSTN) to the subscriber – that is the FXO port (see next term) on analog telephones, a fax machines, or other analog devices. FXS port always pairs with FXO port and vice versa. Offices that have existing FXS ports can connect them to an IP network using a VoIP Gateway with an FXO port.
FXO
FXO stands for Foreign Exchange Office. It is a port on analog phones or other devices that receives analog signals from the phone company's exchange office via an FXS socket. Because the signal from the FXS socket is continuous, the FXO port is required in order to provide an on-hook/off-hook indication to start and end a call. Offices that have existing analog devices with FXO ports can connect them to an IP network using an ATA adapter or VoIP Gateway equipped with FXS ports.
G
Gigabit Ethernet
In telecommunication and computing, this is a wired networking technology that delivers a Gigabit (1000MB) per second data transfer rate – ten times faster than regular fast Ethernet. See more information in relation to routers here.
I
IPv4/IPv6
These Internet protocols are a communication addressing system used to identify devices on a network and across the Internet. IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) is its fourth revision and most widely used. It is a 32-bit addressing system with a limit of about 4.3 billion devices. With the growing number of computing devices (especially smartphones) this limit will be reached in the foreseeable future.
To deal with this the IPv6 version was introduced. It is a 128-bit addressing system with more than 3 Duodecillion possible addresses (3 followed by 39 zeros). It also offers additional configuration, routing, and privacy benefits. Presently both formats are in use alongside each other and implementation of IPv6 depends on both server and device support. Your SIP or IP phone are assigned either an IPv4 or IPv6 address when they are provisioned.
ISDN
ISDN stands for Integrated Services Digital Network. It is a digital communication standard that appeared in the mid-'80s and allowed the transmission of data over regular PSTN phone line infrastructure. It offered two levels of service – BRI and PRI.
ISDN's main advantage is offering simultaneous telephone calls (regular ones, not VoIP), data, fax, and video over a single line. But it failed to become popular because of its higher cost, being slow compared to later broadband technologies, and not offering an always-on connection(requiring a dial-up operation to connect).
Within a few years, ISDN was superseded in the consumer market by DSL and later by cable service. ISDN is still useful today in some specific cases and legacy equipment. It can perform better than DSL in rural areas where users are located far from the local telephone switch. However, with the popularity of cellular communication and other options, ISDN is set to be phased out in many countries by 2025.
Telebroad has some API requests that can indicate if a source call supports the ISDN format. See the spresent value in GET/my/calls/ringing and GET/active/calls requests.
ISP
Internet Service Provider is a company that provides your business with connectivity to the Internet. The ISP usually provides both the physical wiring infrastructure (cable, phone lines, fiber optics, etc) and the networking access that enables Internet traffic over the wiring. In some (uncommon) cases, the infrastructure and networking are provided by two different companies, but mostly your available infrastructure will also dictate your choice of ISP.
Your ISP also gives you a router to facilitate Internet connectivity. Not all routers may be compatible with VoIP or with Telebroad's services out of the box, but we do have some guidelines on how to adjust them for such functionality. Our support team will occasionally refer you to your ISP if they think an issue with your Telebroad account is due to an Internet connectivity problem rather than a problem on our end.