AWG

American Wire Gauge - The measurement of thickness of a wire

Bridge

A device connects two or more physical networks and forward packets between them. Bridges can usually be made to filter packets, that is, to forward only certain traffic. Related devices are repeaters which simply forward electrical signals from one cable to the other and full-fledged routers which make routing decisions based on several criteria.

Broadband

Characteristic of any network multiplexes independent network carriers onto a single cable. Broadband technology allows several networks to coexist on one single cable; traffic from one network does not interfere with traffic from another. Broadcast a packet delivery system where a copy of a given packet is given to all hosts attached to the network. Example: Ethernet.

CO

Central Office. Refers to equipment located at a Telco or service provider©s office.

CPE

Customer Premises Equipment located in a user©s premises

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

DHCP is software that automatically assigns IP addresses to client stations logging onto a TCP/IP network. DHCP eliminates having to manually assign permanent IP addresses to every device on your network. DHCP software typically runs in servers and is also found in network devices such as Routers.

DMT

Discrete Multi-Tone frequency signal modulation

Downstream rate

The line rate for return messages or data transfers from the network machine to the user©s premises machine.

DSLAM

Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplex

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