108 GLOSSARY
ITU International Telecommunications Union. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland
the ITU is an international organization within which governments and the private
sector coordinate global telecom networks and services.
IP address An IP address is a set of numbers that uniquely identifies each device in a network.
ISP Internet Service Provider. A business that supplies access to the Internet such as
your telephone company or AOL.
Kbps Kilobits per second. Kbps is the rate at which data is transmitted between
communications equipment, such as 56K modems.
MS-CHAP Microsoft’s proprietary version of CHAP. See also CHAP.
modem A device that transmits/receives computer data through a communications
channel, such as a telephone line. A modem’s essential task is to convert the
analog signals of the telephone line into the digital signals required by your
computer.
NetBIOS filtering NetBIOS filtering is a LAN Modem feature that helps prevent the LAN Modem
from establishing unwanted calls. This feature filters the DNS requests made by
NetBIOS that inadvertently cause the LAN Modem to place a call. NetBIOS is a
protocol primarily used by Windows 98, 95 and NT for local file and printer
sharing.
off hook/on hook Modem operations that are the equivalent of manually lifting a phone receiver
(taking it off-hook) and replacing it (going on-hook).
PAP Password Authentication Protocol. PAP is one of two PPP authentication protocols;
CHAP is the other. An authentication protocol requests information to verify a
valid user. PAP requests the user’s name and password for verification.
PC/TCP PC/TCP is a PC version of TCP/IP created by FTP software.
POTS Plain old telephone service.
PPP Point-to-Point Protocol. PPP provides a standard method of transmitting data
through the Internet. PPP is used for communication between a computer and an
Internet Service Provider.
PPTP Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol. PPTP is a protocol that allows for Windows 95
and Windows NT systems to establish a secure connection to a remote, private
network via a locally-dialed ISP account.
router A router is a device that links networks.
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a standardized
communications protocol which allows different types of devices to communicate
with each other over LANs and WANs.
UDP User Datagram Protocol. UDP converts application data messages into packets to
be sent via the Internet Protocol (IP), but does not verify a successful transmission.
In this way, UDP is more efficient that TCP, leaving the reliability on the application
that generates the message.
V.34 An ITU standard that currently allows data rates as high as 28,800 bps.