Appendix A: Glossary
| A designation for the type of wiring used by Ethernet networks with a data rate of |
| 10 Mbps. Also known as Category 3 (CAT 3) wiring. See also data rate, Ethernet. |
| A designation for the type of wiring used by Ethernet networks with a data rate of |
| 100 Mbps. Also known as Category 5 (CAT 5) wiring. See also data rate, Ethernet. |
ADSL | Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. The most commonly deployed type of |
| DSL for home users. The term asymmetrical refers to its unequal data rates for |
| downloading and uploading (the download rate is higher than the upload rate). |
| The asymmetrical rates benefit home users because they typically download much |
| more data from the Internet than they upload. |
analog | Of data, having a form is analogous to the data’s original waveform. The voice |
| component in DSL is an analog signal. See also digital. |
ATM | Asynchronous Transfer Mode A standard for |
| voice, and video, widely used within the Internet. ATM data rates range from 45 |
| Mbps to 2.5 Gbps. See also data rate. |
authenticate | To verify a user’s identity, such as by prompting for a password. |
binary | The “base two” system of numbers, that uses only two digits, 0 and 1, to represent |
| all numbers. In binary, the number 1 is written as 1, 2 as 10, 3 as 11, 4 as 100, |
| etc. Although expressed as decimal numbers for convenience, IP addresses in |
| actual use are binary numbers; e.g., the IP address 209.191.4.240 is 1101000 |
| 1.10111111.00000100.11110000 in binary. See also bit, IP address, network |
| mask. |
bit | Short for “binary digit,” a bit is a number that can have two values, 0 or 1. See also |
| binary. |
bps | bits per second |
bridging | Passing data from your network to your ISP and vice versa using the hardware |
| addresses of the devices at each location. Bridging contrasts with routing, which |
| can add more intelligence to data transfers by using network addresses instead. |
| The My ADSL Modem can perform both routing and bridging. Typically, when both |
| functions are enabled, the device routes IP data and bridges all other types of data. |
| See also routing. |
broadband | A telecommunications technology that can send different types of data over the |
| same medium. DSL is a broadband technology. |
Broadcast | To send data to all computers on a network. |
CO | Central Office A circuit switch that terminates all the local access lines in a |
| particular geographic serving area; a physical building where the local switching |
| equipment is found. xDSL lines running from a subscriber’s home connect at their |
| serving central office. |
DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol DHCP automates address assignment and |
| management. When a computer connects to the LAN, DHCP assigns it an IP ad- |
| dress from a shared pool of IP addresses; after a specified time limit, DHCP returns |
| the address to the pool. |
84 | SmartVoice Gateway(s) User Guide |
| YML832 Rev2 |
