Bus A single segment through which devices are connected. An Ethernet LAN is based on a bus network which connects all communicating workstations with a common cable.
Byte A string that consists of eight data bits treated as a unit.
Call Guillotine A feature that disconnects a call after a certain period of time irrespective of whether data is being passed across the link or not.
CCITT Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique, now renamed ITU, International Telecommunication Union.
CHAP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol. Part of the PPP protocol to ensure authentication of the connection between two devices.
Class Type of IP address. IP addresses fall into three main classes, A, B and C.
Client A user whom is making use of a particular system resource or peripheral through a workstation attached to a local or wide area network.
Client/server A user who is attached to a file server to recover and store files, but the processing of the data or use of an application is carried out on the client machine.
Coaxial cable A
CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection, the Ethernet protocol that allows each device to create and send its own data packets. CSMA/CD is used to avoid excessive collisions between packets as they are randomly transmitted. A CSMA/CD device first listens for other carriers, if it detects no other carriers, it will then allow the data packet to be transmitted. If a collision is detected, the device stops transmitting, waits a random length of time, and begins transmitting again.
