Glossary

Auto–Attendant (AA): greets callers with a recorded message allowing them to be transferred to an extension without the assistance of a human being. Many times, AAs will provide simple menus to reach departments within an organization. Sometimes, auto attendant and IVR (Integrated Voice Response) systems are used interchangeably however their purposes are very different. AAs replace live operators in routing calls. While IVRs do route calls, they serve to allow many types of interactions via a telephone interface such as account inquiries, telephone banking, etc. IVRs typically provide the option for the caller to use either dial-pad input or the spoken word (speech recognition) to interact with the system. Many emerging telephony professionals use the term IVR for any type of telephony menu-ing, even basic AA. It is therefore important to understand the context of its use.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): system that routes incoming call traffic to telephone representatives using recorded messages to delay and prepare callers when your agents aren’t available to take their calls immediately. This technology is usually associated with call centers. Productivity reporting is a significant aspect to using this technology.

Bundle: the offer of several products as one combined product; sometimes referred to as a package. In the telecom industry, service providers offer bundle packages to SMBs to address their voice and data requirements at a competitive price and to simplify the purchase decision.

“Cloud”: a term that refers to technology that resides in a place other than the user’s office, usually data centers. “Cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet, in the past it referred to the PSTN. The “cloud” is a delivery medium.

Combined Billing (Club Billing): billing for multiple services or multiple locations on one invoice; consolidating invoices streamlines the Accounts Receivable process and can position companies to consolidate multiple contracts into one.

Conference Calling: enjoining three or more parties in a voice call. Standard conferencing capability provided by the customer’s PBX or VoIP equipment is 3-6 callers, and is initiated by a user on the system. Conferencing services are used to bring more than 6 people together on a voice call or simply for ease of use (each person dialing a number versus one person dialing multiple numbers).

DID (Direct Inward Dial) Numbers: block of telephone numbers provided by the service provider which allows for direct dialing to individuals within an organization without intervention from a receptionist or auto attendant. DIDs are associated with T1 and PRI service enabling organizations to provide direct dial numbers to employees without the cost of individual telephone lines.

Find Me / Follow Me: a feature that rings several predetermined telephone numbers (land-line and wireless) in an effort to track down the intended “called” party. The user-defined list of numbers may be called simultaneously or sequentially, either in a predefined order or according to the user’s schedule and location. The call may be routed to voice mail if the intended caller was not reached.

Firewall: hardware, software, or a combination of both which is implemented to block unauthorized access while permitting authorized communications. In most situations, firewalls protect private networks connected to the Internet from unauthorized Internet users. Based on a set of rules, traffic flow is regulated between networks of different trust levels (Internet = no trust versus LAN = high trust).

Hosted Services: a service provider delivers traditional IT functions such as infrastructure, applications (Software as a Service), security, monitoring, storage, web development, website hosting and email, over the Internet or other wide area networks (WAN). Hosted services allow companies to benefit from applications without the investment in the purchase, installation, security, maintenance, and staff overhead to administer it. Companies look to hosted services to consolidate and outsource much of their IT needs for what is said to be a predictable recurring fee set on a subscription basis. Other terms often associated with Hosted Services are Software as a Service (SaaS), application service provider (ASP), and Internet service provider (ISP) to name a few.


Examples of hosted services

• Hosted Microsoft Exchange
• Hosted IP-PBX
• Contact Center SaaS
• Salesforce CRM

MRC (Monthly Recurring Charges): charges invoiced on a monthly basis

NRC (Non-Recurring Charges): One-time charges usually associated with the installation of new service. In the case of service providers, waiving these charges is determined by the length of the contract or by the type of service and components associated with that service. In the case of equipment vendors, the cost of their work is typically a one-time charge.

PBX (Private Branch Exchange): makes connections between the internal telephones of a company and telephones found literally around the world including other internal telephones just a few desks away. Whether connecting wireless phones, fax machines, modems or your multi-line appearance desk set, the PBX creates connections using trunk lines to facilitate communication to an external party. Communication between two internal parties does not require the use of an outside trunk line.

PRI (Primary Rate Interface): an ISDN circuit based on a T1, comprised of 23 64 Kbps B-channels and 1 D-channel. The B-channels are utilized for voice, data & other services such as video conference, and the D-channel transmits signaling and control information.

SLA (Service Level Agreements): sets expectations regarding performance for various types of service the customer receives, vendor’s commitment to timely service provisioning, and can extend to account stewardship. Often, credits for SLA performance non-conformities or violations are given by the service provider to the customer. SLAs can contain many service performance metrics with corresponding service level objectives.

SMB: an abbreviation for small and medium-sized (midsized) business. According to SearchCIO-Midmarket.com, a business with 100 or fewer employees is considered as small while one with 100-999 employees is considered medium-sized. These definitions can vary however.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol): a transmission technology for communicating voice over what historically had been a data network, the Internet or other packet-switched networks, rather than the PSTN (public switched telephone network). Most networks today employ VoIP for its inherent efficiencies and lower operational costs. Other terms used interchangeably with VoIP are IP telephony (IPT), Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone.

VPN (Virtual Private Network): encapsulates data transferring between two or more networked devices on different private networks so as to keep data private from other devices either on the local or wide area network. VPNs reduce network costs by providing a medium for users to securely exchange data over the Internet thereby eliminating the need for individual leased lines which connect to the Internet. VPNs can be secure (Secure VPN) with the use of hidden or secret tunneling protocols such as IPsec, SSL, etc.

T1 or DS1: also known as E1 outside the United States. A circuit comprised of 24 64 Kbps channels or DS0s (E1 is comprised of 32 channels) used to transmit voice or data communications.

Unified Messaging: combines email, fax and voice mail into one system. Those users with unified messaging can receive voice and fax messages in their email inboxes and manage all three medias conveniently