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Appendix A
Glossary
- 2500-type set
- The standard single-line analog touchtone desk telephone.
- A-law
- An encoding scheme that determines how an analog speech signal is converted to a digital signal. A-law encoding is used in Europe. The other algorithm, mu-law, is used in North America and Japan. See also mu-law.
- address
- In telephony, the number dialed by a calling party which identifies the party called. Also known as the telephone number.
- AG
- Natural MicroSystems' Alliance Generation product line of telephony and voice processing hardware.
- AG configuration file
- Text file (usually named ag.cfg) that provides configuration information for all AG boards in a system. The AG configuration file also specifies runtime software such as DSP files and TCPs to download to the AG board(s) as part of board initialization. agmon uses the AG configuration file to initialize and load the AG boards in the system. See also agmon, TCP.
- agmon
- Utility program which reads a configuration file and uses it to load and monitor AG hardware.
- analog
- Information represented by a continuous and smoothly varying signal amplitude or frequency. See also digital.
- blocking system
- A switching system with limited switching capability cannot make all possible sets of connections. Under some circumstances, a connection cannot be made and the call is blocked. See also non-blocking system.
- broadcasting
- Sending the same information to two or more parties. In a switching system, refers to a single input timeslot driving multiple output timeslots of a switch.
- bus (telephony)
- A physical system which permits the interchange of data. A telephony bus has three basic elements: lines for the data, bit synchronization (clocks), and frame synchronization (frame strobe). Most telephony buses also have a network reference - an 8 kHz timekeeper. See also H.100 bus, MVIP.
- call control
- Any part of telephone call establishment, including setting up, blocking, monitoring, transferring, releasing, or tearing down the telephone call.
- clock master
- The board that drives the clock signal for a system of boards connected by a bus cable. See also clock slave.
- clock slave
- A board that derives its clock signal from a bus cable; the clock signal is driven by the bus clock master. See also clock master.
- conference
- A group of callers connected together in the same telephone call.
- conference bridge
- A device used to allow three or more parties to talk on the same telephone call.
- conference seat
- One of several available parties (callers) who can participate simultaneously in a telephone conversation.
- CT Access
- Natural MicroSystems' development environment for telephony applications.
- digital
- Information in a discrete or quantized form. See also analog.
- DID
- Direct Inward Dialing; an incoming telephone service which delivers the final portion of the called address to the CPE, thus allowing the caller to reach an individual extension of a PBX.
- DSi0..7, DSo0..7
- The names of the physical bus wires in the MVIP-90 bus cable that carry the individual unidirectional bit streams. By convention, they are paired up (DSiX, DSoX) to form eight full-duplex MVIP streams. DSi0..7 are designated for input to resource boards and DSo0..7 are designated for output from resource boards.
- DSP
- In telephony, a Digital Signal Processor; a microprocessor that is designed to perform the calculations required for voice processing.
- encoding
- Any of several compression techniques for digitizing and compressing data.
- enhanced loop start hybrid (ELS)
- An NMS line interface hybrid that provides on-hook monitoring of a telephone line at normal audio levels. The enhanced loop start hybrid offers improved logging and better signal-to-noise detection than the standard loop start hybrid.
- flash hook
- A brief signaling state change which goes from off-hook to on-hook, and back to off-hook. See also off-hook, on-hook.
- gain
- An amplitude scaling (in dB) applied to played speech after decompression or to recorded speech prior to compression.
- glare
- In telephony, the simultaneous occurrence of an attempt to place a call and the appearance of an incoming call on the same line. In general, the incoming call must be given precedence. Also known as call collision.
- ground start
- A method of signaling between two machines where one machine grounds one side of the line and the other machine detects the presence of ground.
- H.100 bus
- A PCM digital bus standard for integrating hardware from various PC board vendors which enables boards to share voice data, signaling data, and switching information. The H.100 bus is an interoperable superset of the H-MVIP and MVIP-90 telephony buses. It can be addressed using the MVIP-95 switch model. See also bus (telephony), H-MVIP, MVIP-90, MVIP-95.
- H-MVIP
- The bus cable hardware standard for MVIP-95. See also MVIP-95.
- host
- The PC on which an application runs. Also used to designate a computer with full two-way access to a network such as local area network or the Internet.
- hybrid
- A circuit that converts a single bidirectional communication channel to separate receive and transmit channels.
- inbound application
- An application designed to receive inbound calls.
- inbound call
- A call received by an inbound application, placed by a remote party.
- input gain
- Gain applied to the input audio data. See also gain.
- ISA
- Industry Standard Architecture; the de-facto bus card standard in the IBM-PC compatible world. Also known as the PC/AT bus.
- line
- A logical telephone connection on which a call can take place.
- line seizure
- The process by which a switch or station instrument (phone) takes control of a telephone circuit.
- loop start (LS)
- A method of signaling an off-hook or a line seizure, where one end of the connection closes the loop circuit and the resulting current flow is detected by the switch at the other end.
- mu-law
- One of two algorithms used in telephony to logarithmically compress or expand digitized speech. mu-law is used in North America and Japan. A-law is the other algorithm used in European networks. See also A-law.
- MVIP
- Multi-Vendor Integration Protocol; PCM digital bus standard for integrating various board vendors. Facilitates software-controlled digital switching within the PC chassis. MVIP interconnects switching and telephony processing boards on a PC. An interoperable subset of the H.100 bus standard. See also H.100 bus.
- MVIP-90
- Original MVIP standard for hardware and software requirements for a standard telephony bus.
- MVIP-95
- Device driver specification for H-MVIP, H.100, and H.110 telephony buses.
- MVIP bus
- A high-speed, multiplexed digital telephony "highway" which allows boards to share data, signaling information, and switching information. See also bus (telephony).
- MVIP bus adapter
- A hardware connector that attaches an MVIP-90 bus to an H.100 board (e.g., an AG Quad), which enables boards connected to the MVIP-90 bus to access the first 16 streams on the H.100 bus and boards connected to the H.100 bus to access streams of data on the MVIP-90 bus. See also MVIP bus, H.100 bus.
- MVIP switch model
- An abstract representation of the logical switching capabilities that can be located on one physical network interface device.
- nail up
- To make a permanent, dedicated assignment, as in nailing up a connection. Typically, a nailed up connection cannot be dynamically modified during an application's runtime, but can be changed by re-initializing the hardware and/or the application.
- noise suppression threshold
- Noise level below which signals from a conference seat to a conference are ignored.
- non-blocking system
- A switching system with enough switching capability to allow all possible sets of connections to be made. See also blocking system.
- off-hook
- The active state of a telephone circuit. The term is derived from old telephone sets where the receiver, when in use, was lifted from a hook attached to a switch. The opposite condition is on-hook.
- on-hook
- The inactive state of a customer telephone circuit. The term is derived from old telephone sets where the receiver, when not in use, was placed on a hook attached to a switch. The opposite condition is off-hook.
- operator workstation
- A type of network interface which connects to operator headsets.
- outbound application
- An application designed to place outbound calls.
- outbound call
- A call placed by an application to a remote party.
- output gain
- In telephony, gain applied to output.
- protocol (telephony)
- Defined procedure for call setup and call teardown.
- signaling
- Information relayed between parties that is related to the process of a call (e.g., the status of the line, call progress and control information, etc.) rather than the content of the call (e.g., data or voice information).
- slave
- Bus clock slave; derives the clock signal from the bus clock, which is driven by the bus clock master. See also clock slave, clock master.
- swish utility
- CT Access utility which controls MVIP switches. swish is a tool for interactive or text-file-driven control of MVIP switches. It provides a convenient way to manually try out connections during development to verify the commands that will be given to switches from within CT Access applications that use the Switching service.
- switch
- In telephony, a device that can connect one of several inputs to one of several outputs.
- switch block
- The switch on a telephony board that connects the telephone network to the telephony bus. The logical switch is normally referred to as the switch block because it may consist of one or more physical switches or chips.
- switching
- In computer telephony, making connections between telephony boards within a PC chassis both during and between phone calls. Enables an application to share resources and data across different telephony boards.
- switching driver
- Driver providing the interface between the application switching commands to the physical switch on the device.
- TCP
- Trunk Control Program; a downloadable module which contains the low-level code to interface with an analog or digital trunk running a certain protocol. TCPs are specific to a trunk protocol, for example, one-way inbound with wink start (which is used for DID and DNIS). See also DID, loop start (LS), wink.
- wink
- An out-of-band signaling method that simulates an off-hook condition for a brief period.
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