Glossary

Bell Operating Companies (BOC): The family of corporations created during the divestiture of AT&T. BOCs are independent companies which service a specific region of the US. Also called Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs).

Bell Pub 41450: The Bell publication defining requirements for data format conversion, line conditioning, and termination for direct DDS connection.

Bell Pub 62310: The Bell publication defining requirements for data format conversion, line conditioning, and termination for direct DDS connection.

Binary Synchronous Communication (BSC): A form of telecommunication line control that uses a standard set of transmission control characters and control character sequences, for binary synchronous transmission of binary-coded data between stations.

Bit (Binary digIT): A bit is the basis of the binary number system. It can take the value of 1 or 0. Bits are generally recognized as the electrical charge generated or stored by a computer that represent some portion of usable information.

Bit Error Rate Test (BERT): A device or routine that measures the quality of data transmission. A known bit pattern is transmitted, and the errors received are counted and a BER (bit error rate) is calculated. The BER is the ratio of received bits in error relative to the total number of bits received, expressed in a power of 10.

Bit robbing: The use of the least significant bit per channel in every sixth frame for signaling. The line signal bits "robbed" from the speech pat conveys sufficient pre-ISDN telephony signaling information with the remaining line signal bits providing sufficient line signaling bits for recreating the original sound. See "robbed bit signaling".

Blue Alarm: An error indication signal consisting of all 1s indicating disconnection or attached device failure. Contrast "Red Alarm" and "Yellow Alarm".

Bps (bits per second): A unit to measure the speed at which data bits can be transmitted or received. Bps differs from baud when more than one bit is represented by a single cycle of the carrier.

Bridges: 1) A functional unit that interconnects two local area networks that use the same logical link protocol but may use different medium access control protocols. 2) A functional unit that interconnects multiple LANs (locally or remotely) that use the same logical link control protocol but that can use different medium access control protocols. A bridge forwards a frame to another bridge based on the medium access control (MAC) address. 3) In the connection of local loops, channels, or rings, the equipment and techniques used to match circuits and to facilitate accurate data transmission.

Buffer: A temporary storage register or Random Access Memory (RAM) used in all aspects of data communications which prevents data from being lost due to differences in transmission speed. Keyboards, serial ports, muxes and printers are a few examples of the devices that contain buffers.

Bus: A common channel between hardware devices either internally between components in a computer, or externally between stations in a communications network.

Byte: The unit of information a computer can handle at one time. The most common understanding is that a byte consists of 8 binary digits (bits), because that's what computers can handle. A byte holds the equivalent of a single character (such as the letter A).

Call Setup Time: The time to establish a circuit-switched call between two points. Includes dialing, wait time, and CO/long distance service movement time.

Carrier Group Alarm (CGA): A T1 service alarm generated by a channel bank when an OOF condition occurs for a predefined length of time (usually 300mS to 2.5 seconds). The CGA causes the calls using a trunk to be dropped and for trunk conditioning to be applied.

Carrier signal: An analog signal with known frequency, amplitude and phase characteristics used as a transport facility for useful information. By knowing the original characteristics, a receiver can interpret any changes as modulations, and thereby recover the information.

CCITT (Consultative Committee for International Telephone and Telegraph): An advisory committee created and controlled by the United Nations and headquartered in Geneva whose purpose is to develop and publish recommendations for worldwide standardization of telecom- munications devices. CCITT has developed modem standards that are adapted primarily by PTT (post, telephone, and telegraph) organiza- tions that operate telephone networks of countries outside of the U.S. See also ITU.

Central Office (CO): The lowest, or most basic level of switching in the PSTN (public switched telephone network). A business PABX or any residential telephone connects to the PSTN at a central office.

Centrex: A multi-line service offered by operating telcos which provides, from the telco CO, functions and features comparable to those of a PBX for large business users. See also "Private Branch Exchange", "Exchange".

Channel: A data communications path between two computer devices. Can refer to a physical medium such as UTP or coax, or to a specific carrier frequency.

Channel bank: A device that acts as a converter, taking the digital signal from the T1 line into a phone system and converting it to the analog signals used by the phone system. A channel bank acts as a multiplexer, placing many slow-speed voice or data transactions on a single high-speed link.

Circuit-switched Network: A technology used by the PSTN that allocates a pair of conductors for the exclusive use of one communication path. Circuit switching allows multiple conversations on one talk path only if the end-users multiplex the signals prior to transmission.