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Shoretel Unified Communications Glossary
1. GLOSSARY
Business Communications A to Z
A Helpful Compendium Of Unified Communications & IP Telephony
Terms, Acronyms And Phrases
Every industry has its communications short-cuts: those specialized
phrases, abbreviations and insider terms that can fly by in a white paper
or conversation as though the listener is already well-versed in the field.
IP Telephony and Unified Communications is no exception. Today’s
sophisticated integration of business phones with UC applications offers
a multitude of end-user features made possible by lightning-fast, low-
cost Internet distribution, advanced communications protocols, ingenious
device programming, and rich multimedia enhancements. It is a “must
have” for all businesses, no matter the size. ShoreTel offers this glossary to
take some of the complexity out of talking VoIP and UC.
A Automatic number identification (ANI) – ANI
is a feature that allows the telephone company
to capture the billing phone number of the
ATM – Asynchronous Abandoned call – An abandoned call is when
calling party. ANI is similar to caller ID, but with
Transfer Mode the caller disconnects while he or she is on
ANI, the caller’s phone number and line type
hold and waiting for a call center agent. The
are captured even if caller ID is blocked.
ACD – Automatic call caller may call back at a later time, but may
distribution become dissatisfied and call a competitor. Availability – Availability of any IT system is
As the call volume increases, the abandon based on the probably of a hardware failure.
ANI – Automatic number rate usually increases. Experts consider the Availability takes into account the type and
identification optimum abandoned call rate to be 3 percent number of hardware components in a system
to 5 percent. and the mean time between failure (MTBF)
BYOD – Bring-your-own- for these components. If an IP telephony
device Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) – ATM
switch has a predicted MTBF of approximately
is a type of wide-area network circuit that
135,600 hours, and each failure requires
is used to transmit voice, video and data.
one hour mean time to repair (MTTR), then
All information sent over an ATM network
availability is 99.9993%. This achieves five-nines
is broken into packets of a fixed size, which
of availability, and it means the switch will be
means the performance is predictable and
unavailable for one hour every ten years.
manageable.
Automated attendant – An automated
attendant offers a customizable way for an B
organization to quickly route incoming calls
to their destinations. Organizations can use Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) – With
automated attendants to connect callers the huge popularity of mobile devices,
with the right parties faster and hire fewer many people want to use their personal
operators or receptionists. smartphones, tablets and other mobile
Automatic call distribution (ACD) – An ACD devices to access business applications and
is a system that receives incoming phone calls information. They won’t need to carry different
and routes them to the appropriate contact mobile devices for work and personal use, and
center agent. ACDs are used in businesses and they will be able to make and receive personal
contact centers that handle large volumes of and business calls, while maintaining their
incoming callers who may require assistance business and personal personas. Companies
from any number of different people. can also save the cost of buying smartphones
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2. and tablets for their workers. A successful a computer. Examples include screen pops,
BYOD initiative requires careful management automatic dialing and call center functions.
and security to protect the business from risk. Conferencing – Conferencing allows two
or more people to interact using audio
C (audio conferencing), audio and video (video
conferencing), or a combination of audio,
video and information sharing using a Web
Call center – A central location of an
browser (web conferencing). Conferencing
organization that handles high volumes of
reduces the need for travel and encourages
inbound and outbound calls, typically for sales,
collaboration among employees, customers
service or support.
and partners who may be at different physical
Call detail record (CDR) – Business phone locations.
systems generate detailed logs of calls, which
Contact center – A contact center handles
can be saved for processing and analysis.
high volumes of inbound and outbound calls,
Service organizations that bill by the hour, such
Web chats, instant messaging, emails, faxes
as legal and advertising firms, often input the
and other forms of communications, typically
information from call detail records into their
for sales, service or support. A contact center
customer billing systems.
also typically uses blended agents, who can
Caller identification (Caller ID) – Caller ID manage multiple forms of voice and data-
is used to allow the called party to see the centric customer communications.
calling party’s name and telephone number
Customer relationship management (CRM)
before picking up the phone. Caller ID can be
– Software that manages all aspects of an
CDR – Call detail record blocked by the calling party.
organization’s interactions with its customers,
Caller ID – Caller Capital expense (capex) – Capex includes all clients and prospects.
identifiication of the equipment required, including hardware
and software, planning, installation, initial
Capex – Capital expense setup and integration with other systems. D
Capex declines over time, as IT products
CEBP – Communications- continue to improve in price/performance Denial of Service (DoS) – DoS or distributed
enabled business and new features. See operational expenses DoS (DDoS) attacks are favorites of criminals,
processes (opex). political operatives as well as disgruntled
Click to call – The ability to launch a phone call customers, former employees and social
CTI – Computer telephony protestors. DDoS attacks have become
directly from the contact list on your computer.
integration highly organized and complex, which makes
Cloud-based VoIP or unified communications them harder to fight. In a DDoS attack, the
CRM – Customer (UC) – Most IP voice and unified network is bombarded with traffic, resulting in
relationship management communications systems today are a slowdown or crash of the applications and
deployed on-premises, but cloud services servers. Every organization using IP telephony
DoS – Denial of service are becoming increasingly popular. With a should have backup telephone lines in case of
cloud service, costs are more predictable a DDoS attack.
DID – Direct inward dial
than with an on-premises solution. A cloud-
based business phone system is both hosted Direct inward dial (DID) – DID is used for
E911 – Enhanced 911 call routing, and it enables external callers
and managed by the provider. The VoIP or
unified communications system is located in to contact a user directly at his or her unique
the provider’s secure data centers and the phone number. In the UK, it is called direct
provider owns, configures and manages it. dial-in (DDI).
Communications-enabled applications –
These applications have directly integrated E
communications functionality. Key applications
include collaboration, contact center, Employee-liable mobile device – A mobile
notification applications, reporting and device, such as a smartphone or tablet, that’s
analytics. owned by the employee, not the organization,
Communications-enabled business processes but is used to access corporate applications
(CEBP) – When business applications are and data.
integrated with communications applications Enhanced 911 (E911) – When IP telephony or
to improve operations and workflow, it is mobile phone users dial 911, E911 is used to
known as communications-enabled business allow the location of the user to be known to
processes. CEBP can be used in collaboration, the call receiver. E911 support is required by
contact center, notification applications, and the FCC for mobile phones and IP phones.
reporting and analytics tools.
Ergonomics – The science of designing
Computer telephony integration (CTI) – products, machines and systems to maximize
CTI refers to any technology that enables the safety, comfort and efficiency of the
integrated interaction on a telephone and people who use them. Ergonomics takes into
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3. account psychology, physical measurement, conferencing. SIP and MGCP protocols have
environment and more to ensure that products become more popular than H.323 over time.
are adapted to suit workers and their specific Hosted VoIP – In a hosted VoIP or unified
needs. Keep ergonomics in mind as you communications system, the carrier, vendor
look at the handsets and software of unified or solution provider runs and manages the
communications systems. system. Costs are more predictable than with
the traditional on-premises model where
F businesses buy, build and manage their own
phone systems.
Find me, follow me – This IP telephony feature Hunt groups – On a business phone systems,
allows an employee to program his or her hunt groups ensure that all calls are answered
extension to ring based on status, such as by a live person, rather than having to wait in a
allowing the call through when he or she is queue or go to voicemail. An incoming call can
in the office, forwarding to a mobile phone ring extensions in a specified sequence or ring
when there is no answer, or forwarding to multiple extensions at once, depending on the
a colleague when the line is busy. Find-me, company’s preference.
follow-me improves worker productivity and
customer service by ensuring that every call
reaches the right person, regardless of where I
he or she is working.
IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN – Wireless LANs
Firewall – A firewall sits between two networks,
use radio technologies to provide connectivity
such as a company’s network and the Internet,
for smartphones, tablets, IP phones, sensors
to prevent access by unauthorized users. A
and many other types of devices. 802.11
firewall monitors and controls the flow of data
wireless LANs operate in the 2.4 GHz and 5
in and out of the network and can intercept,
GHz radio bands. 802.11n is the newest and
analyze and stop a wide range of malicious
fastest technology and delivers up to 100Mbps
attacks. Make sure your company’s firewall
performance–similar to or even better than
supports IP voice.
wired networks. Older (but still compatible)
FMC – Fixed mobile Fixed mobile convergence (FMC) – FMC technologies include 802.11a (54Mbps), 802.11b
coverage solutions integrate cellular services with (11Mbps) and 802.11g (54Mbps).
private communications networks, either wired
IM – Instant messaging IEEE 802.11e – 802.11e is an enhancement
or wireless. Users are accessible via a single
to the 802.11 wireless LAN specifications
number and can use of enterprise telephony
IVR – Interactive voice that provides quality-of-service features,
features from their mobile phones. FMC can
response including the prioritization of data, voice and
provide cost savings by eliminating expensive
video. To ensure a quality user experience,
roaming charges on mobile networks,
quality of service should be used for real-time
especially for international calls. See also
applications such as voice and video.
mobile unified communications.
IEEE 802.11i – 802.11i improves wireless
Frame relay – Frame relay is a type of wide-
authentication and encryption for wireless
area network connection. Frame relay circuits
LANs. Together, 802.11i and Wi-Fi Protected
are less expensive than private leased lines
Access 2 (WPA2), from the Wi-Fi Alliance, are
because the carrier shares the frame relay
used to secure wireless networks.
bandwidth among many customers. When
properly engineered, frame relay can provide IEEE 802.1p – 802.1p is a specification that
a cost-effective way to transmit IP telephony gives Ethernet switches the ability to identify
traffic and still guarantee quality of service. and prioritize traffic into eight classes of
service. 802.1p works at the media access
control (MAC) layer, or Layer 2.
G
IEEE 802.1X – 802.1X authentication should
be used to verify a user’s identity on a
G.711 – G.711 is an ITU-U standard that wireless LAN, so that unauthorized guests
describes the 64-kbps pulse code modulation are not allowed to use the network. Laptops,
(PCM) voice coding technique. In G.711, tablets and smartphones can support 802.1X
encoded voice is already in the correct format authentication, but Wi-Fi IP phones, which
for digital voice delivery in the public switched have less computational capacity, use simpler
telephone network or through PBXs. methods such as MAC address authentication
or username and password.
H Instant messaging (IM) – Real-time
communication over the Internet using text-
H.323 – H.323 is a standard that facilitates based messages. Often a key component of
videoconferencing over packet-based UC.
networks. It includes a complete suite Interactive voice response (IVR) – IVR is a
of protocols for audio, video and data method of communication between customers
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4. and an automated system through the use of a by network congestion, how routers and
telephone keypad or speech recognition. switches queue up packets as well as network
routing policies, such as traffic engineering
IP contact center – Call centers using
or MPLS paths used by carriers. Latency, jitter
traditional PBXs can find that it is difficult
and packet loss all impact voice quality.
and expensive to gradually increase the
number of agents. With an IP-based contact
center, companies can more easily growth L
their contact centers one agent at a time. In
addition, IP contact centers can span across
Latency – Latency is the time it takes for a
many locations, which gives the business
caller’s voice to be transported – packetized,
greater flexibility than having to assemble a
sent over the network, depacketized and
skilled team of agents in a single location.
replayed – to the other person. Geographical
Agents can sign in from wherever they are
distance and lower-speed network
(even at home) and be instantly online as part
connections can cause delays. If latency is
of the contact center team. Also called a virtual
too high, the natural conversation flow will
contact center or distributed contact center.
be interrupted. Latency should not exceed
IP PBX – An IP PBX is a business phone 100 milliseconds one way for toll-quality
system that delivers voice or video over a data voice. However, participants can still carry on
network using IP. The previous generation of a decent conversation if latency is up to 150
PBXs used time-division multiplexing, rather milliseconds. Latency, jitter and packet loss all
than IP. impact voice quality.
IP phones – IP phones plug directly into Leased lines – Leased lines are the most
the network and perform the necessary private wide-area network (WAN) connection,
analog-to-digital and/or digital-to-analog and they are direct point-to-point connections
conversions. You may need different models between your locations. Leased lines can be
of IP phones based on various segments in used for data, voice and Internet services. They
your user population. For example, the legal are also the easiest type of WAN circuit to
department may need multi-line handsets with ensure a high quality of service for voice and
MTBR – Mean time easy conference call capabilities, while the other applications.
between failure manufacturing floor needs a phone with fewer
Least-cost routing – Used in voice
bells and whiles but good, loud sound and a
MTTR – Mean time to communication to select the outbound
rugged exterior.
repair communications path based on lowest cost.
IP telephony – IP telephony uses the IP
MGCP – Media gateway network to carry voice, fax and other types of
control protocol information that traditionally have been sent M
over the public switched telephone network.
Also called voice over IP (VoIP). Managed IP telephony services – In a
managed services model, the customer owns
IP telephony system architecture – Some IP
the IP PBX and related equipment, and it
telephony systems use a distributed system
resides either at the customer’s office or in the
architecture, while others use a centralized
provider’s network, while the carrier or value-
architecture. In a centralized architecture, a
added reseller provides management and
central call control server provides dial tone for
maintenance for the phone system.
all phones. In a distributed model, the phone
service is handled by multiple call control Mean time between failure (MTBR) – MTBF
servers, which can be in different locations, is the predicted time between failures of a
and call control is provided by each switch in system during operation. MTBF is calculated
the system. A distributed system has greater as the average time between failures of a
reliability and resilience. system. The hard disk drives, fans and power
supplies of a business phone system are the
IP VaaS – IP voice as a service is a small but
components that are most likely to fail. Look
growing offering as a VoIP telephony solution.
for a system with the fewest moving parts.
Rather than buying and managing the VoIP
infrastructure internally, clients receive voice Mean time to repair (MTTR) – The time to
services via a third-party provider that hosts, repair a device. A four-hour MTTR is the
delivers and manages the operation remotely. industry standard, which can be a challenge
The infrastructure is typically shared with other for businesses that want to maintain five nines
clients. (see Hosted VoIP). of availability for the IT systems. Redundant
systems are usually added to ensure the
appropriate levels of availability. Modular,
J distributed systems also make repair easy and
results in a lower MTTR.
Jitter – Jitter can cause strange sounds to
Media gateway control protocol (MGCP) –
contaminate voice calls and users will complain
MGCP, also known as H.248 and Megaco, is
about degraded voice quality. Jitter is caused
an ITU-U standard for handling the signaling
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5. and session management needed during a all hardware must be doubled, which doubles
multimedia conference. MCGP defines the the hardware cost.
communication between a media gateway, Net Promoter Score (NPS) –SATMETRIX’s
which converts the data for use on a circuit- Net Promoter Score® is a globally recognized
switched network, to the format required for metric used to measure customer loyalty. NPS
a packet-switched network and the media is a measurement of an individual’s willingness
gateway controller. to recommend a company or product to
Metro Ethernet – A metropolitan area network others. A score of 50 or above is considered
that is based on Ethernet standards and is world class.
used to connect subscribers to the Internet Network assessment – A network assessment
or to their own offices in the region. 10-Gbps provides a comprehensive performance
Ethernet services are increasingly popular for assurance and real-time verification of unified
metro Ethernet. communications performance right to the
Mobile device management (MDM) – MDM users’ desktops. A network assessment will
software secures, monitors and manages help scout out problems before IP voice or
mobile devices, such as smartphones and video is deployed. Any business deploying
tablets. MDM software usually distributes IP voice should first conduct a network
applications and enforces data and assessment.
configuration settings for mobile devices, and
includes the ability to lock or delete data from
a lost or stolen mobile device. MDM can also O
be provided as a service.
Operational expenses (opex) – Opex is
Mobile unified communications (mobile
the cost involved once a given service
UC) – A mobile UC solution includes
is operational, including operational
common telephony functions, presence
MDM – Mobile device management, user education, support,
status, messaging, calendar, visual voicemail,
management troubleshooting and related labor-intensive
videoconferencing and document sharing/
services. Opex costs increase over time, as
MACs – Moves, adds and collaboration from a smartphone or tablet.
personnel costs rise. See capital expenses
changes Mobility Router – A mobility router is a (capex).
network appliance that combines IP telephony,
MPLS – Multi label enterprise wireless LANs, carrier cellular
switching networks and location technology to extend P
voice and unified communications to mobile
NPS – Net promoter score devices. A Mobility Router allows users Packet loss – Packet loss results in a metallic
to make and receive calls from enterprise sound or conversation dropouts in IP phone
Opex – Operational
and personal mobile phone numbers by systems. Packet loss can be caused by network
expenses
automatically selecting the best network (Wi-Fi congestion, distance and poor line quality.
PoE – Power over ethernet or cellular) to optimize cost, call quality and Because VoIP is a real-time service, there’s
battery life. no way to recover lost packets. Even one or
two percent packet drop results in noticeably
Moves, adds and changes (MACs) – The
degraded voice quality. Latency, jitter and
administration necessary when users or
packet loss all impact voice quality.
network components are moved, added or
changed on the network. When the moves, Power over Ethernet (PoE) – With PoE,
adds and changes for your phone system need electrical power and data are transmitted
to be done by a reseller or solution provider, on Ethernet cabling. On today’s networks,
rather than your own IT administrator or office IP phones plug directly into the Ethernet
manager, expenses can quickly add up. network, rather than having a separate power
source. The IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) – Many
standard can be used to power IP phones,
large enterprise and service provider networks
video surveillance camera and other devices.
use MPLS to create full mesh connectivity
The original IEEE 802.3af standard provides
across the wide-area network without having
up to 15.4 watt of DC power, where the newer
to manage virtual circuits.
IEEE 802.3at (also known as PoE Plus) provides
up to 25.5 watts of power.
N Presence status – The ability to see a
colleague’s presence status, such as in the
N+1 redundancy – A business phone system office, away, on the phone, or in a meeting.
with a distributed architecture that allows for A user’s presence status should change
use of N+1 redundancy will provide high levels automatically if the person is on the phone
of reliability. N+1 redundancy means that extra or scheduled to be in a meeting. Presence
parts, such as voice switches, can be added services are expanding to include the
to provide redundancy and there is no single presence and location information between
point of failure. A 1:1 redundancy means that multiple sources.
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6. Private branch exchange (PBX) – A PBX applications and their associated data are
telephone system is based on time-division centrally hosted on the cloud. The services
multiplexing (TDM) and they were traditionally provided are typically accessed by users via a
deployed by organizations until the arrival of web browser.
IP-based phone systems in the late 1990s. Seamless roaming – When a person walks
Public switched telephone network (PSTN) from one location to another using a
– The network of the public circuit-switched mobile device, he or she counts on roaming
telephone lines, which allows any phone in the capabilities of the wireless LAN to keep the
world to connect with any other phone. The application or voice call connected. Invisible to
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) the user, the underlying wireless infrastructure
creates the standards that govern the technical hands off the user from one wireless access
operations of the PSTN. point to the next, while performing the
necessary re-association and re-authentication
in the background.
Q
Service level agreement (SLA) – An SLA is
part of a service contract where the level
Quality of service (QoS) – There are a number
of service is defined. SLAs can be between
of ways to identify and mark which applications
service providers and customers, or businesses
and traffic should receive high priority
and their internal departments. An SLA may
transmission over the network. These methods
describe the service uptime, application
include virtual LANs, DiffServ, Type of Service,
response time, application performance,
IEEE 802.1p, IP address, and source and
time to repair, and other measurable details.
destination ports. Different QoS methods may
PBX – Private branch An SLA for voice quality might include call
be used at Layer 2 and Layer 3, and to ensure
exchange completion rate, delay from when the last digit
that quality of service can be enforced end-to-
is dialed until a user hears a ringing or busy
PSTN – Public switched end across the network, you must ensure that
signal, and a mean opinion score to measure
telephone network these QoS methods can be translated from
voice quality.
one layer to another.
QoS – Quality of service Session border controller (SBC) – If you are
using SIP trunks to connect your company’s
RTP – Real-time transport R different locations, you should add a session
protocol border controller to protect against malicious
Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) – An IP attacks. An SBC ensures that only approved
ROI – Return on investment standard that provides end-to-end network traffic passes into the heart of your business.
transport functions that can be used by An SBC also hides your internal network and
SLA – Service level application transmitting real-time voice, video your users IP addresses from the outside
agreement or data over unicast or multicast network world, which provides additional security
services. protection.
SBC – Session border
control Reliability – Reliability generally refers to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) – SIP is a
hardware reliability. Reliability is determined signaling protocol used to establish a session
SIP – Session initiation by calculating how often the system fails in an IP network, from a simple telephone call
protocol compared to the percentage of the time to a multimedia conference session with many
that the system is available. In the telephony participants. SIP establishes, manipulates and
world, five nines of reliability is the acceptable tears down sessions. However, there are many
benchmark. This means the system is available different “flavors” of SIP, which can create
at least 99.999 percent of the time. Reliability is interoperability issues. SIP is RFC 3261 from
different than availability. the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
Return on investment (ROI) – ROI is used to SI – Systems Integrators specialize in bringing
justify a purchase decision. In IT, ROI is about together component subsystems into a
the productivity an organization gains by whole andensuring that those subsystems
implementing a particular technology. For function together, a practice known as system
unified communications, this productivity integration.
could be qualitative, such as customer
Skills-based routing – In a contact center,
satisfaction, or end-user productivity, such as
skills-based routing is used to automatically
increased call volumes or the productivity of
route calls to the most appropriate agent,
contact center agents. ROI and total cost of
based on criteria such as language, experience
ownership (TCO) are often confused. See also
or technical expertise.
total cost of ownership.
Softphone – A softphone, which delivers
telephony capabilities to any PC or laptop, is
S particularly convenient for workers who travel
frequently. With calls directed to a laptop
SaaS – Software as a service, sometimes and a headset plugged into the USB port, an
referred to as “on-demand software”, is a employee can work from anywhere using the
virtual application service in which software computer and its built-in microphone.
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7. UCaaS a more sophisticated communications
T solution than simple voice, and should include
instant messaging, conferencing, presence
TDM – Time-division multiplexing (TDM) is and voicemail features, as well as advanced
a type of signal multiplexing in which two or integration with email and other business
more bit streams share allocated space on one process software, to be considereda truly
communication channel by physically taking unified communications solution.
turns on the channel via synchronized and
Unified communications (UC) – UC provides
error-corrected time slots of fixed length. TDM
a single interface through which users can
exponentially increases the amount of data
access a wide range of communications
that can be transmitted simultaneously.
options, including voice, instant messaging,
Telephony denial of service (TDoS) – TDoS email, conferencing and more.
refers to automatically generated call floods
Unified communications and collaboration
received by businesses – usually their contact
(UCC) – UCC integrates multiple
centers. For example, attackers can flood the
communications channels and enables
contact center’s IVR or agents with hundreds
communication and collaboration within
or thousands of concurrent calls to disrupt the
workgroups and across company boundaries.
business or to generate calls for revenue. See
UCC includes voice and telephony,
also denial of service.
conferencing, messaging, presence status
Telepresence – Telepresence is a set of and instant messaging, and these capabilities
TDM – Time-division technologies that provides video and sound can be accessed from a variety of devices.
multiplexing quality that is as good as being there. Products may be a standalone suite or a
Telepresence has extended the capabilities of portfolio of integrated applications and
TDoS – Telephony denial of videoconferencing beyond the boardroom to platforms.
service tablets and other mobile devices, facilitating
Unified messaging – Unified messaging is the
collaboration.
TCO – Total cost of integration of email, SMS, fax, voicemail and
ownership Throughput – How much bandwidth your video messaging into a single interface and
system needs, which depends on the number accessible from a variety of devices. Unified
UCaaS – Unified of simultaneous calls, the voice encoding messaging simplifies the user experience
communications as a scheme used by the IP phone or softphone, because all types of messages are stored in
service and the signaling overhead. one place.
UC – Unified Toll fraud – Insider abuse or a compromised
communications system may allow outsider access to the phone V
system to make calls, often internationally. Toll
UCC – Unified fraud can cost companies millions of dollars.
VaaS – Voice as a Service. (See IP VaaS)
communications and Total cost of ownership (TCO) – TCO helps
collaboration you determine which specific vendor’s product VAR – A value-added reseller is a company
you should purchase. TCO is the measure of that adds features or services to an existing
VaaS – Voice as a service what technology costs to own. For unified product, then resells it as an integrated
communications, these costs could include product or complete “turn-key” solution.
VAR – Value added reseller The added value can come from professional
capital expenses such as hardware and
software, implementation and training, system services such as integrating, customizing,
VLANs – Virtual local area consulting, training and implementation.
networks management, and network and long distance
charges. The focus for organizations should Customers purchase systems from a reseller if
be on choosing products that reduce these they lack the time or experience to assemble
tangible costs over the lifetime of owning the system themselves. Some OEMs chose
the system. TCO and return on investment to market their products and services solely
(ROI) are often confused. See also return on through VARs.
investment (ROI). Virtual contact center – A virtual contact
Trunk line – Trunk lines connect the PBX to center leverages an IP-based contact center
public switched telephone network. In older solution that allows agents to work from
PBX phone systems, ISDN, T1, E1 and DS3 different locations and even from home. A
were commonly used for trunk lines. Today, SIP virtual contact center scales more effectively
trunks are often used. and allows businesses to leverage expertise
across locations, rather than hoping to find a
highly skilled team in one location. Also called
U an IP contact center.
Virtual LANs (VLANs) – Many organizations
UCaaS – Unified communications as a service use virtual LANs (VLANs) to logically separate
is a turn-key business communications solution devices and departments on the same physical
whereby clients pay for shared use of an IP UC network. Isolating different groups’ traffic
infrastructure which is owned and managed from one another provides an additional layer
offsite by a provider (see Hosted VoIP). of security. Giving voice traffic its own VLAN
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8. will deliver a better user experience. Using Wideband audio –Wideband audio (50 Hz
VLANs also reduces the impact of multicast or to 7,000 Hz) is preferred for business phone
broadcast traffic. systems, because it makes conversations
sound better and reduces errors in translation.
Virtual private network (VPN) – A VPN is
Wideband audio more than doubles
a private network used by a company, and
narrowband (300 Hz to 3,400 Hz). An IP
in many cases, its partners or associates, to
PBX should support both wideband and
communicate over a non-private network.
narrowband.
VPN traffic can be carried over a public
network infrastructure such as the Internet. Wi-Fi – Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi
Internet-based VPNs offer the least amount Alliance, an industry organization. Wi-Fi is used
of administrative control to regulate and to describe products that have passed the
guarantee quality of service to ensure a good organization’s interoperability tests; however,
voice experience. the term Wi-Fi is commonly used to describe
wireless LANs.
Virtualization – Virtualization is the creation
of a virtual (rather than an actual) version of Wireless LAN – Wireless LANs use radio
something, such as an operating system, technologies to provide connectivity for
server, storage device or network. For smartphones, tablets, IP phones, sensors and
example, server virtualization essentially tricks many other types of devices. Smaller wireless
the operating system into thinking that a LANs use access points (APs) to provide the
group of servers is a single pool of computing service, while larger wireless LANs also use
resources, and that allows IT to run multiple mobility controllers to control and manage the
operating systems simultaneously on the same many access points.
machine. Virtualization allows companies to Wireless Multimedia (WMM) – WMM is used
consolidate servers, increase operational to deliver quality of service for voice and other
VPN – Virtual private flexibility and deliver higher application
newtork applications on wireless LANs. WMM defines
availability. four priority levels to support different types
VoIP – Voice over IP Voice over IP (VoIP) – VoIP is a method of of traffic, including voice, video, best effort for
sending voice calls over the IP data network. data and background traffic. WMM is a Wi-Fi
VoWLAN – Voice over This can apply to the public Internet or private Alliance certification that’s based on the IEEE
wireless LAN IP networks. Also called IP telephony and IP 802.11e standard.
voice.
WebRTC – Web real-time
communications Voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) – Running
IP voice over a wireless LAN.
WFQ – Weighted fair
queuing
W
WAN – Wide area newtork
WAN optimization – WAN optimization
WMM – Wireless products accelerate your applications by
multimedia eliminating redundant transmissions, staging
data in local caching, compressing and
prioritizing data, and streamlining chatty
protocols. This makes more room for your real-
time applications, such as voice and video.
WebRTC – Web Real-Time Communication) is
an API definition being drafted by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to enable
browser to browser applications for voice
calling, video chat and P2P file sharing without
plugins.
Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) – WFQ is
a quality of service method that is used on
routers and switches. WFQ allows traffic
flows to share the network, but provides
prioritization for small, time-sensitive traffic.
This way, a large traffic flow, such as a backup,
will not clog the pipe or create lengthy delays
for smaller flows, such as voice.
Wide area network (WAN) – A telecom
network that spans great distances, often
across a metropolitan or regional area, but
also across countries.
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