VoIP Acronyms – Demystified

IVR – Interactive Voice Response

A powerful automated VoIP business service that replaces the need for a receptionist and can be used to direct calls or play answers based on a series of questions. It is also known as a Digital Receptionist or AA (Auto Attendant).

Ring Groups

A ring group is a way for a set of extensions to share the distribution of incoming calls. Typically, support, sales and accounting would have ring groups to share the incoming calls among employees of a company.

Hunt Lists

A hunt list is set up to find the first and most suitable available person to answer the phone. A hunt can be setup to ring one person at a time until the first available person answers. In comparison, a ring group will ring the entire group of people at the same. Hunt lists can be set up to hunt through multiple ring groups if necessary, e.g. the sales group can be rung first, if no one answers the accounts group of extensions will be rung, etc.

Multi Device Extension

The multi device extension feature permits an incoming phone call to ring your number as well as a standard PSTN number along with any other number(s) simultaneously.

DND – Do Not Disturb

A setting that allows you to forward all incoming calls to your voicemail so your phone never rings.

Conference Bridge

Conference Bridge is used to connect multiple people over a phone line or broadband internet connection for conference call and other such occasions.

ONA – One Number Access

Euphoria One Number Access allows you to specify up to four phone numbers to ring when the caller calls on one specified number.

Follow Me, Find Me

Euphoria’s Follow Me, Find Me is a call hunting feature that allows you to enter up to five phone numbers to ring in sequence.

PBX – Private Branch Exchange

An IP PBX is a private branch that switches calls between VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol or IP) users on local lines while allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines.

LNP – Local Number Porting

Local Number Portability (LNP) enables consumers in South Africa to transfer their existing telephone number (traditional or Internet-based) from one phone service provider to another.

G729 – Voice Codec

The G729 codec is the most efficient way to transport voice over low-bandwidth networks, such as those typically found throughout South Africa.

TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol Suite is the set of communications protocols that implements the protocol stack on which the internet and many commercial networks run. It is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is named after two of the most important protocols it comprises: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined.

SIP – Session Initiation Protocol

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an application-layer control signalling protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants. These sessions include telephone calls and conferences. Any voice activity on the Internet generally uses the SIP protocol to transfer and manage voice data.

RTP – Real-time Transport Protocol

The Real-time Transport Protocol (or RTP) defines a standardised packet format for delivering audio and video over the internet.

DTMF – Dual-tone Multi-frequency

Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signalling is used for telephone signalling over the line in the voice-frequency band to the call-switching centre.

QOS – Quality of Service

Quality of Service (QoS) refers to control mechanisms that can associate different priority levels to different users or data flows, or guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow in accordance with requests from the application program.

NAT – Network Address Translation

Network Address Translation (NAT) involves re-writing the source and/or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through a router or firewall. Most systems using NAT do so in order to enable multiple hosts on a private network to access the internet using a single public IP address.

DMZ – Demilitarized Zone

A DMZ is a network area that sits between an organization’s internal network and an external network, usually the internet. Typically, the DMZ contains devices accessible to internet traffic, such as web (HTTP ) servers, FTP servers, SMTP (e-mail) servers and DNS servers.

DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DHCP is a set of rules used by communications devices such as a computer, router or network adapter to allow the device to request and obtain an IP address from a server that has a list of addresses available for assignment.

WAN – Wide Area Network

Wide Area Network (WAN) is a computer network that covers a broad area (i.e. any network of which the communications links across metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries). Or, less formally, a network that uses routers and public communications links. These differ from personal area networks (PANs), local area networks (LANs), campus area networks (CANs), or metropolitan area networks (MANs) which are usually limited to a room, building, campus or specific metropolitan area (e.g. a city) respectively. The largest and most well-known example of a WAN is the internet.

LAN – Local Area Network

A local area network is a computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings.

PPPoE – Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet

Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet refers to a network protocol for encapsulating point-to-point protocol frames in ethernet frames.

VPN/IPSec – Virtual Private Network/Internet Protocol Security

A virtual private network (VPN) is a private communications network often used by companies or organisations to communicate confidentially over a public network. VPN traffic can be carried over a public networking infrastructure (e.g. the Internet) on top of standard protocols, or over a service provider’s private network.

UPnP – Universal Plug and Play

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of computer network protocols promulgated by the Universal Plug and Play Forum. The goals of UPnP are to allow devices to connect seamlessly and to simplify the implementation of networks in the home (data sharing, communications and entertainment) and corporate environments.

IP – Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol is the computer networking protocol used on the internet.

RJ-11

This code is a physical interface often used for terminating telephone wires.

RJ-45

This code is a physical interface often used for terminating network cables.

VoIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol

Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the internet or through any other IP-based network.

Cloud (Hosted) PBX

A Cloud PBX system delivers PBX functionality as a service, available over the internet. Euphoria business services deliver powerful Cloud PBX calling features combined with local and long-distance services.