Glossary of Telecoms Terms

An AC adapter, AC/DC adapter, or AC/DC converter is a type of external power supply, often enclosed in a case similar to an AC plug. Other common names include plug pack, plug-in adapter,adapter block, domestic mains adapter, line power adapter, wall wart, power brick, and power adapter.

One of the extended roles of the Whitelabel Admin. This role allows extra permissions around invoices and reporting, such as orders and subscriptions. This role is added on top of White Label (WL) Administrator permission levels.

An ACL is an implementation of a type of logic that can selectively permit or deny certain packets to go through an interface. However, an access list does stateless inspection: the access list looks at a packet and has no idea of what has come before.

ADSLs are common connectivity options. Asymmetric means the line is greater toward the customer premises (downstream) than the reverse (upstream). Providers usually market ADSL as a service for consumers for Internet access for primarily downloading content from the Internet, but not serving content accessed by others.

Dial-up Internet technologies require a phone call to connect you to the internet. When you finish your session the connection is terminated. An always-on service means the connection to the Internet remains open all day every day. This type of service is usually charged at a flat rate per month. You will also need a piece of equipment called a router to manage your connection.

In relation to VoIP analogue refers to pre-digital phones and systems. Virtually all new phones are digital, although many can also use analogue networks.

Identifies and directs your phone number to a specific country or region.

An Analogue Terminal Adaptor is a small device that enables your standard telephone to make and receive calls over your broadband Internet connection. It’s simple to use and plugs directly into your broadband router and your normal analogue phone. ATAs are often sold combined with routers.

The UC Portal automatically logs every action facilitating the support operation and keeping track of the entire configuration history. There are 4 different levels of logs (info, warning, error and debug) and the system also tracks the author of the action logged, as well as the timestamp of the event. Customer Administrators and Super User roles have the ability to view all tracked activity. A maximum of 800 logs are visible, with new logs overwriting older logs.

The UC Portal’s Call Flow Designer allows Customer Administrators to create call flows. Call flows can include a number of features, known as elements, that perform particular tasks. 

Bandwidth gives you an indication of the speed capabilities of your broadband connection. This speed is measured in kilobits per second (Kbps). Old dial-up modems have a maximum data rate of 56 Kbps. Broadband services begin with data speeds of 512 Kbps. These speeds cannot be guaranteed as the connection will more than likely be shared with other people. 

Traditionally, broadband is sold on a ‘’contended’’ basis (subscribers have to share a pipe – usually, 50:1 or 20:1), so when it’s busy, the actual available capacity fails. 

‘’Uncontended’’ broadband, however, still does not mean a guaranteed minimum. Typically, peak usage will settle at a level depending on exact activity and amount of traffic. If traffic consistently exceeds the capacity of a node or circuit, the broadband service will have to be upgraded. 

This is a type of line that provides 2 data (bearer) channels (B channels) at 64 kbit/s each and 1 control (delta) channel (D channel) at 16 kbit/s. The B channels are used for voice or user data, and the D channel is used for any combination of data, control/signaling, and X.25 packet networking. The 2 B channels can be aggregated by channel bonding providing a total data rate of 128 kbit/s. The BRI ISDN service is commonly installed for residential or small business service (ISDN PBX) in many countries.

Broadband is high-speed Internet access that you access through a cable or DSL modem. It has a continuous connection to the Internet at much faster speeds than dial-up.

When each user and/or device is added to the customer’s UC Portal account, call barring can be implemented on the device or user profile. An administrator can bar any user, or device, from making certain types of calls (National, International, Mobile, Premium).

A ‘Room’ and a ‘PIN’ is provided to each user to allow them to host a conference at any time. Each conference call can handle up to 32 end points.

The UC’s graphical user interface makes call flow design easy, with each call flow element displayed in an onscreen menu. All the elements can be dragged and dropped.

A phone service feature that allows the user to forward a phone call to another phone number. For example, you can forward your home phone number to your mobile number so you never miss a call.

The call history can be filtered based on date ranges, user groups or individual users, devices, originating numbers, dialed numbers and the type of number (fax or voice). It can be downloaded in .csv format.

This transmits a caller’s number during the ringing signal. When creating users, or adding lines to devices, an internal caller ID number and internal caller ID name can be configured. An external caller ID number and caller id name can also be set at the user (or line) level. The external caller ID number must be an external number that belongs to the customer account.

On the UC Portal an administrator can create call queues to handle a large number of inbound calls. UC Portal users can also be set up as agents who can then be assigned to various call queues. 

These are detailed call records. With Blueface you can view these on line by logging in to your account. They contain information on call: duration, destination, origination and price.

A page is a message that is simulcast to a number of devices that have been defined as a paging service area. All devices will be placed in speaker mode and the page will be delivered. For enhanced security, it is possible to assign a PIN so that only authorized users can initiate a page.

It places the call on hold in a designated extension until a user dials into that extension to resume the call. Users can monitor park positions and pickup calls on their devices using the function keys or sidecar button on their phones. Call parking can be Static (1 call) or Dynamic (from 1 up to 10 calls).

The UC Portal and phones allow for remote pickup of an inbound call. Calls may be picked up using a programmable function key or sidecar button on the phone that has been configured to monitor a line using the BLF functionality.

The UC Portal offers administrators the ability to turn on call recording at the user level. This allows that calls from all devices linked to a user can be recorded, if required. Conference calls may also be recorded, if required. Recordings totaling up to 100 hours or 3 months/90 days (whichever threshold is reached first), are stored on enabled accounts. Call recording currently has an impact on “music on hold” feature by turning it off.

The Call Flow Designer allows an administrator to create call flows that can intelligently handle call distribution. A call flow can be linked to a DID/DDI and be associated to a Time of Day call flow element to determine how calls should be handled on certain days of the week, month, holidays and also at certain times of each day.

There are different types of UTP cables identified with the prefix CAT, each supporting a different amount of bandwidth. CAT simply stands for “Category”, and the number that follows indicates the specifications to which the cable was manufactured. A general rule of thumb is that the higher numbers represent faster speeds and higher frequencies, measured in Mhz.

Call waiting puts your first call on hold while you answer the second. While you are on the phone a beep tone alerts you to another incoming call. You can then put your first call on hold and take the second call. Any calls that you do not choose to take will go to your voicemail.

The UC Portal’s call history includes advanced search/filtering, which can be used to review the call history. The call history can be downloaded in a .csv format, allowing the user to further manipulate the data. 

This feature is available across multiple sections of the UC Portal including: Call Reporting, Contacts, Voicemails and Call Recordings. Click the phone icon next to a number in any of these sections to generate a call from the User’s device to the selected number.

CNAM can be used to display the calling party’s name alongside the phone number, to help users easily identify a caller. CNAM typically relates to a caller name passed from or to the PSTN (off net).

In VoIP it is a voice compression-decompression algorithm that reduces the bandwidth required for the audio signal to allow a more effective use of the infrastructure. The CODEC used isn’t that relevant today as it used to be with DSL, that caused many call quality issues. On the UC Portal, we have 3 options (High Bandwidth – G.711, Normal Bandwidth – G.722, Low Bandwidth – G.729). G711 is our preferred Codec.

Voice is captured and transformed in a binary format. This can be done with different levels of quality: higher the quality, closer you are to the actual sound of the speaker’s voice and more is the data required and therefore larger must be the bandwidth.

The UC Portal allows the Customer Administrator to set limits on concurrent calls per Customer account. Setting concurrency limits help ensure call quality for Customers with low Internet bandwidth. Default or custom prompts can be set for inbound and outbound calls.

Administrators can then create a call flow using the Call Flow Designer that will link a number to the Conferencing call flow element. Audio conferencing invitees can then dial the new number and will automatically hear an IVR asking them to enter the room number and PIN to join the audio conference.

Congestion occurs when there is too much traffic on the Internet or a specific site. This slows all web page requests down and causes delays in downloading files and viewing information.

It enables receptionists or other call gatekeepers to manage calls. The Console is a graphical user interface that allows the operator to field inbound calls and route them. The availability of each user is displayed on each user tile. The operator can transfer a call to a user, place a call on hold, click to call any of the users and intercept calls or decline them.

Contacts can be individually added by each User. This contact list will sync with the devices linked to the same User. Alternatively, the UC Portal also allows central management of the company address book on all company devices, which can be bulk uploaded via an Excel template.

When you have a broadband connection there is a connection path between you and the Internet Service Provider. This connection path that carries data is referred to as contention. Many users will be using the same connection so when service providers quote a contention ratio of say 50:1 this means 50 other users will be using the same connection as you. This could affect you at peak usage times as the connection could become congested. Normally however you can expect this not to have a significant impact on your connection and broadband speed.

The UC Portal allows central management of the company address book on all company devices, which can be bulk uploaded via an Excel template.

Devices not assigned to a user. A typical example would be a phone in a corridor or a Conference phone.

Select one or more audio files to play while your customers are on hold. If more than one file is selected, they will play in a loop each time the ‘Music On Hold’ is triggered. The recording will always commence from the start each time. The audio files can be of the following types: .wma, .flac, .mp1, .mp2, .mp3, .mp4, .opus, .ra.

Admin for the Customer’s account. Has permission to view and edit all elements on the account and manage accordingly.

An administrator can add, remove or configure devices. They can also check the status of each device on the account. The Device section of the portal displays each line on each device. 

Administrators can also customize each device/device line by allocating different numbers to different lines, pre-programming numbers for one touch dialling (Speed Dials) and set up Busy Lamp Field (BLF) to monitor other devices and therefore utilize the call pickup function. 

It is a communications protocol that lets network administrators centrally manage and automate the assignment of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in an organisation’s network. Using the Internet Protocol, each machine that can connect to the Internet needs a unique IP address, which is assigned when an Internet connection is created for a specific computer. Without DHCP the IP address must be entered manually at each computer in an organisation and a new IP address must be entered each time a computer moves to a new location on the network. DHCP lets a network administrator supervise and distribute IP addresses from a central point and automatically sends a new IP address when a computer is plugged into a different place in the network.

Allows Distributors to view all the accounts the Resellers have created and manage those accordingly. They will have the same permission on all accounts in their Distribution portfolio as a Customer Administrator.

It’s a resource record which specifies a regular expression based rewrite rule that, when applied to an existing string, will produce a new domain label or Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

The ideal network involves your Internet Service Provider (ISP) connecting onsite to a stand-alone modem that connects to a router. If you have more devices on your network than ports on your router, then you can connect a switch to your router to expand the number of ports. If you use an additional router instead of a switch, you will be creating a Double NAT.

This makes it difficult for the messages to make it to and from their destination. There is no fix for a Double NAT other than replacing one of the routers with a switch.

Most issues involving Double NAT will be intermittent meaning it will work one minute then have issues the next. The reason is that the messages don’t always fail to get to and from their destination. Normally the more traffic a user has on their network the more likely they are to experience issues.

Downloading information is usually used to describe transferring information/data from the Internet. When you download a file like an email or web page it copies from a remote computer to your computer.

The DSL is a connectivity option. A device used to connect a computer or router to a telephone line provides the DSL service for connectivity to the Internet, which is often called DSL broadband.

DTMF (dual tone multi frequency) is the signal or noise the phone keypad makes when you press the touch keys. When you press a key it generates two specific frequencies so a voice cannot imitate the tones. These tones are used for signalling the telephone exchange.

is a service that automatically displays the telephone number and physical location of the 911 caller on the emergency operator’s screen.

A sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener.

This Echo element in the Call Flow allows linking a specific number to the echo test of the platform in order to perform a basic troubleshooting, and check the latency and jitter. It is useful for L1/Tier 1 support actions.

EFM/FTTC is a connectivity technology that is based on a combination of fibre optic cable and copper cable. The fibre optic cable is in place from the local telephone exchange to a distribution point (commonly called a roadside cabinet). From this distribution point a standard telephone line based on copper is then used to deliver the broadband connectivity.

A method of networking computers in a local area network (LAN). connectivity option Ethernet Fibre aka FTTP/O (Fibre To The Premise/Office) is a pure fiber-optic cable connection running from an ISP (Internet Service Provider) directly to the user’s home or business.

This is a cable used in networking computers that can carry data like basic voice services and connect your computer to a router to access the Internet.

Where a company has multiple sites or stores set up as individual accounts they can appoint a Federation Admin. This Admin will have access to view all accounts associated with their Federation Group and can manage accordingly. They will have the same permission level on all accounts as a Customer Administrator. This is an extended role of the Whitelabel Administrator. 

Companies with independent stores, outlets, franchises or sites can create and link the various multiple accounts associated with each of these entities using our Federation Functionality. This function links each individual entity so that they utilize a common internal dial plan across their entire federation (any extension duplication will be highlighted by the platform). The Customer Administrator who creates the federation is typically assigned the extended role of Federation Administrator.

A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented as hardware, software, or a combination of both. All messages entering or leaving pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the security criteria specified on the firewall.

A firewall’s main security purpose is blocking unsolicited incoming network traffic, but because a firewall is sitting between these two networks, it can analyze all traffic reaching or leaving the network and decide what to do with it; a firewall could have a variety of rules that allow and deny certain types of traffic. For example, it could only allow connections to a server from a specific IP address, dropping all connection requests from elsewhere for security.

In IP telephony a gateway is a network device that converts voice and fax calls in real time between public switched telephone networks (PSTN) and an IP network. The primary functions of an IP gateway include voice and fax compression/decompression, packetisation, call routing, and control signalling.

Has the same access as a ‘Regular User’ with the additional ability to view the Call History for the ‘User Group’ to which they are assigned. They will not have any other control over the account.

Blueface uses GUIs for its Toolbox and Conferencing. It is a computer interface that uses icons or pictures to help users navigate and control both services.

HTML is the programming language used to create documents for display on the World Wide Web.

Is the set of rules and standards that govern how information is transmitted on the World Wide Web.

A hub is a communication device that distributes data to several devices in a network by re-broadcasting the data that has been received from one (or more) of the devices connected to it.

INEX is a neutral, industry-owned Association, founded in 1996, that provides IP peering facilities for its members. INEX membership is open to all organisations that can benefit from peering their IP traffic. They provide us with high-speed, reliable and resilient IP traffic exchange facilities allowing us to route IP traffic efficiently thereby providing faster, more reliable and lower-latency internet access for our customers. INEX switching centres are located in secure data centres around Dublin and the infrastructure is connected by dedicated resilient fibre links.

A provider of internet access. This can be for broadband or dial-up.

This is a digital telephony and data-transport service offered by regional telephone carriers. ISDN involves the digitisation of a telephone network, which permits voice, data, text, graphics, music, video, and other source material to be transmitted over existing telephone wires.

Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide.

An IP address is a unique address that certain electronic devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network. Any participating network device including routers, switches, computers, time-servers, printers, Internet fax machines, and some telephones have their own unique address. Similar to a home or business address supplying that specific physical location with an identifiable address, devices on a network are differentiated from one another through IP addresses. A computer uses DNS servers to look up a hostname to find its IP address. Most IP addresses look like this: 151.101.65.121

Is an automated software-based telephone information system that speaks to callers using a mix of fixed voice menus and real-time data accessed from databases. Callers interact with an IVR by making touch-tone keypad selections or speaking words or short phrases. IVR systems are used to route callers to specific personnel or departments, conduct polls or provide information, such as billing information or bank balances.

In VoIP, measured in milliseconds, jitter is the variation in the latency on a packet flow between the sender and the receiver, when some packets take longer to travel from one system to the other. 

The source of jitter can be an extreme challenge to identify (cables, hardware). Like any intermittent problem, you have a chance to find it only if you’re capturing data from the LAN at the time the problem occurs (relevant for speed test). 

Jitter is basically the variance in measuring successive ping tests. Zero jitter means the results were exactly the same every time, and anything above zero is the amount by which they varied. Like the other quality measurements, a lower jitter value is better. Recommended jitter value is < 3 ms. 

Jitter is significant to real-time applications because the receiver will notice Jitter as poor audio quality, audio sounds choppy. 

A local area network is a computer network covering a local area, like a home, office or small group of buildings such as a college or hospital.

A synonym for delay, is the amount of time it takes to send information from one point to the next. Latency is usually measured in milliseconds (ms). It’s also referred to (during speed tests) as a ping rate. 

Latency is measured by sending a packet that is returned to the sender and the round-trip time is considered the latency. 

Latency’s effects depend on observers, but most will perceive obvious latency around 100-120 milliseconds. Communications will start to break down around 250-300ms. 

Recommended latency value is <100 ms.

Is a unit of measurement used to describe data. 1MB is 1,000KB (Kilobytes). 1MB is 1,048,576 bytes to be exact but is often rounded off to 1,000,000 bytes. An average length MP3 music file would be about 4MB. A standard photo taken with a 7 Megapixel camera would be 1-1.5MB. A standard 3 page text only Word document would be about .08MB or 80KB.

A measurement of data transmission speed in a communication system: the number of megabits transmitted or received each second.

The UC Portal allows the User Administrator to add one or more audio files to play while your Customers are on hold. File formats supported: wav, ogg, mp3, mp4, wma. The Call Flow Designer also includes a Play element, which can be used to play an audio file at a relevant point in a call flow. Files can be uploaded using a simple drag & drop function.

A modem is a device for sending computer data over a voice phone line.

The MOS is a commonly used measure for video, audio, and audiovisual quality evaluation. 1 is the lowest perceived quality, and 5 is the highest perceived quality. 

Is a method of distributing phone calls from a single telephone number to a group of several phone lines and finding the next free line in a group. A Hunt number/group is not connected to a particular handset, but incoming calls to a particular number (hunt number) are routed to a pre-defined group (hunt group) of extension’s numbers. The call can be broadcast or rotated through the pool of lines until a free line is found, and the caller is connected.

NAT is a technique of transcribing network traffic through a router that involves re-writing the source and/or destination addresses of IP packets as they pass through. Most systems using NAT do this so multiple hosts on a private network can access the Internet using a single public IP address. Many network administrators find NAT a convenient technique and use it widely.

Two or more computers that are connected so users can share files and devices (for example, printers, servers, and storage devices).

The UC Portal provides a suite of tools to allow administrators to fully manage and allocate internal and external numbers. These features allow the user (with sufficient permissions) the ability to allocate/deallocate the following number categories (Extensions, Local numbers, Local fax numbers, International numbers, International fax numbers).

A technique for routing data through a network is by encapsulating data into packets. These packets are then labelled with addresses and routing information and forwarded until they reach their intended destination.

Packet loss is the failure of one or more transmitted packets to arrive at their destination. In audio communications, such as VoIP, it can cause jitter and frequent gaps in received speech. In the worst cases, packet loss can cause severe mutilation of received data, broken-up audio, unintelligible speech or even the complete absence of a received signal.

It is a very small specialised switch. It permits any attached telephones to call each other using shorter numbers and requires the caller to select an “outside line” to make calls outside the switch. A VoIP based PBX is a very common device which can be hardware or a software at the user’s end that manages calls and diverts.

Ping is the measurement that tells how long it takes a “packet” of data to travel from your computer to a server on the Internet and back. Whenever you experience delayed responses in Internet applications – this would be due to a higher than desired ping. Similar to packet loss, lower is better when it comes to ping. A result below 100 MS should be expected from any decent broadband connection.

The Internet is a collection of separate and distinct networks referred to as autonomous systems. The relationships between these networks are generally described by one of the following categories:

Transit (or pay) – The network operator pays money (or settlement) to another network for Internet access (or transit).

Peer (or swap) – Two networks exchange traffic between their users freely, and for mutual benefit.

Customer (or sell) – A network pays another network money to be provided with Internet access.

Motivations for peering are, for example: increased redundancy, capacity for extremely large amounts of traffic, routing control over one’s traffic and performance.

Traditionally PSTN phones were powered by the PBX or Telephone Exchange, while IP Telephones need power from a data cable (PoE) or from an AC Adapter. Most modem routers and switches are PoE enabled. CAT5, and later cables, have 4 pairs of wires. PoE sacrifices one pair to carry power.

Mail programs usually require you to enter this information when you are setting up an email account. POP is the set of rules and standards that govern the retrieval of email messages from a mail server.

There are 2 kinds of Ports, Physical Port and Logical Port. A physical port is located on computer and telecommunication devices where you can physically connect to some other device, usually with a socket and plug of some kind. Logical port is a term used in programming. It is a logical connection place like on a router interface when you login you see SIP ports or RTP ports, Ports required by Blueface are UDP 5060-5061 for VoIP and UDP 10000-20000 for voice.

Allows users to create and modify Porting requests. This role is added on top of White Label (WL) Administrator permission levels.

A phone connected to a local exchange where it is “on hook (hung up)” until taken “off hook”. Built on standard copper wire and POTS phones, they are reliable, boast good voice quality, and have the basic features you might find in a typical home phone such as hold, mute, redial, and speed dial. They may also be able to transfer calls between extensions. But their features end there. Because of their simplicity and limited potential for expansion, they are relatively inexpensive to purchase. However, analog systems, because they use less-modular hardware can be expensive to support, configure, and upgrade. 

Power-cycle is a euphemism for asking you to switch off a device and switch it back on again.

PPP is a connection oriented protocol that establishes a link between two communication devices that encapsulates data packets (such as Internet packets) for transfer between two communication points. PPP allows end users (end points) to set up a logical connection and transfer data between communication points regardless of the underlying physical connection (such as Ethernet, ATM, or ISDN).

This term is always used in connection with ISDN as in “ISDN PRI”. It refers to a digital circuit, such as a T1 or E1 that carries multiple calls and uses the ISDN signalling protocol.

It is a type of line for large organizations, with one 64-kbit/s D channel and 23 or 30, 64-kbit/s B channels.

A protocol is a formalised set of rules that computers use to communicate. This strictly defines procedure and message formats allowing two or more systems to communicate over a transmission medium.

This is the most commonly used method by all users that only have the need to use one line for one conversation at a time using only one phone number. PSTN uses an old technology whereby circuit-switched copper phone lines are used to transmit analogue voice data. It is the basic service that you have at home and in a small business. As a dedicated service, a PSTN line cannot be used for any other purpose while a call is being made. 

QoS prioritises voice traffic to avoid any interferences ensuring the quality of your voice calls even when your broadband connection is being used for other items like downloading music or surfing the web. It’s a free setting on most firewalls, but residential firewalls may not have this option. 

Is a term used to describe restarting your computer and operating system.

Duplication of components, systems or connections to ensure continuity in the event of failure. 

Standard user. This is usually an employee of the end-customer, identified through his or her credentials (username & email). Logging in to the portal allows them to view their own details, device, call history, call recordings, voicemail and user profile. They cannot make any changes to their settings.

Allows Resellers / Partners to view all the accounts they have created with the Customer and manage those accordingly. They will have the same permissions on all accounts in their reseller portfolio as a Customer Administrator.

Ability to continue if failure occurs.

The Call Flow Designer allows to distribute incoming calls according to the defined ring/hunt groups. The ring groups can be assigned as simultaneous, sequential, loop or random ring strategy. Through this feature, broadcast media can also be assigned to alert the Caller of any number of messages (dependent on your media file library) such as “the call may be recorded”. Similarly, different ringtones may be set to alert the User of different types of incoming calls (e.g. internal or external).

RJ11 is a physical connector mostly used for terminating telephone wires. Looks like a data network cable, but isn’t, it is used for ADSL, telephone, and modem cables etc…

RJ45 is a physical connector commonly used for telephone and data communication systems (ethernet networking). It looks similar to a telephone jack, but is slightly wider. Since Ethernet cables have an RJ45 connector on each end, Ethernet cables are sometimes also called RJ45 cables. It’s mainly used in network wiring.

Commonly RTP is a packet based communication protocol that adds timing and sequence information to each packet to allow the reassembly of packets to reproduce real time audio and video information. RTP is a transport used in IP audio and video environments.

Is a piece of hardware that directs information to your computer this is what connects you to an Internet service provider for Internet access.

In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave (a continuous signal) to a sequence of samples (a discrete-time signal). Sample rate is the number of samples of audio carried per second, measured in Hz or kHz (one kHz being 1000 Hz) and is a determination of audio quality. VoIP is typically 8kHz or 16kHz.

This connectivity system is set up through the installation of a satellite dish. The Internet feed is then transmitted to the dish by a satellite. Because you don’t need a phone line or fibre connection, this can be a good option for people in rural areas, but there can be latency issues.

This symmetric bandwidth can be considered to be the opposite of the asymmetric broadband, where the upstream bandwidth is lower than the downstream bandwidth. SDSL is generally marketed at business customers, while ADSL is marketed at private as well as business customers.

SIP is a protocol designed to allow personal computers to place telephone calls on the Internet. It is a standard protocol for initiating an interactive user session that involves multimedia elements such as video, voice, chat and gaming.

SIP ALG is enabled by default on many commercial routers and internet gateways (modems). It intends to prevent some of the problems caused by router firewalls by inspecting VoIP traffic (packets) and if necessary modifying it. SIP ALG modifies SIP packets in unexpected ways, corrupting them and making them unreadable. This can give you unexpected behavior, such as phones not registering and incoming calls failing. 

Many routers have SIP ALG turned on by default. Some firewalls hide this setting and in some instances, it will require an upgrade of the firewall to change this.

VoIP phone calls generally require the same bandwidth in both directions of transmission. If only one or few phone calls are made at the same time, an asymmetric DSL connection is typically still adequate. However, when there are a lot of simultaneous phone calls, the connection should be configured to provide adequate upload and download bandwidth.or VoIP, enough bandwidth must be supplied to allow for the transmission of voice data in real time. A good rule of thumb is to consider 1/10 of your organization is on the phone at any given time, or 100 kbps for every 10 employees. 

To check your speed, perform this test: https://www.blueface.com/speed-test/. Run the test twice at peak time and at down time. Do not perform the test over a WiFi connection (lower quality). Recommended value is 100 kbps per simultaneous call. 

Download Speed: The download speed is how fast you can pull data from the server to you. Download speed is measured in megabits per second (Mbps) Low download speeds will result in difficulty hearing the person you call or has called you.

Upload Speed: The upload speed is how fast you send data from you to others. Upload speed is measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Low upload speeds will result in issues hearing your caller or the person who has called you.

A static IP address is an IP address that was manually configured for a device, versus one that was assigned via a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server. It’s called static because it doesn’t change. It’s the exact opposite of a dynamic IP address, which does change. Routers, phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, and any other device that can use an IP address can be configured to have a static IP address. This might be done through the device giving out IP addresses (like the router) or by manually typing the IP address into the device from the device itself.

STUN is a protocol for assisting devices behind a NAT firewall or router with their packet routing. STUN allows applications to discover the presence and types of NATs and firewalls between them and the public Internet.

A switch is a device that connects two separate  devices together. For example to connect two computers to one printer. Switches manage the flow of data across a network by transmitting a received network packet only to the one or more devices for which the packet is intended. 

Each networked device connected to a switch can be identified by its network address, allowing the switch to direct the flow of traffic maximizing the security and efficiency of the network.

Is a software installed on your computer that enables the use of VoIP without any hardware. You will need a headset or microphone and headphones to make phone calls. It allows you to make and receive phone calls without having a traditional home phone. The Blueface UC Softphone application is a SIP-based softphone for use with a Blueface UC Portal account and is available for download through the Apple App Store (for iOS devices including iPhone, iPad and iPod touch) or for Android on the Google Play Store (https://play.google.com). 

When a user sets up their account with Blueface, they will be provided with the necessary SIP credentials to link the Softphone application to their Blueface UC account.

The Blueface UC application allows users to make and receive calls and includes: call recording, call history, call transfer, voicemail, contacts, etc…

This is an extension of the RTP protocol with an enhanced security mechanism. It provides encryption, authentication and integrity verification of data and messages passed through the RTP-based communication protocol. SRTP enforces an AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm to encrypt and decrypt all incoming and outgoing messages. The authentication mechanism provides a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) algorithm, which implements a cryptographic hash function and secret key to validate a message’s authenticity and integrity. 

Because TLS is used for signalling, the SRTP key information in the SIP packets is also encrypted. Therefore, an attacker cannot access the key information as a pathway to accessing the voice data. 

TCP has more checks and even if the packets arrive in the wrong order, it will realign them and ask for a re-transmission. This is useful for SIP signalling where, even if just one packet is missing, the information isn’t valid anymore. Transporting Voice via TCP is useful only in very specific cases.

The Call Flow Designer has a ‘Time of Day’ feature that allows to specify how a call is to be handled, depending on the User’s preferences. For example, out of hours calls can be routed to a different location. It is fully localised, supporting time zones and bank holidays for over 12 different countries.

Is a protocol that ensures secure communication between the client and server on the network. When a server communicates with the customer, TLS ensures that no third party can eavesdrop or tamper with any message being passed between these parties. TLS is the successor to the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

The account administrator may wish to encrypt the voice data on a user’s calls. To do this, the administrator can turn call encryption on or off at the user level.
When TLS encryption is enabled, the signalling information is handled using TLS, and the voice data (the SIP packets) are encrypted using SRTP. If a user enables TLS, all the SIP packets will be encrypted to assure that the content cannot be read by malicious people. The SRTP is enabled automatically when TLS is turned on.

Tunnelling is a way in which data is transferred between two networks securely. All the data being transferred is fragmented into smaller packets or frames and then passed through the tunnel.

This is a very light, simple protocol that has few checks, and if some packets get lost or don’t arrive in the starting order, that is not important. To carry Voice it is very convenient because it is fast and and even if there’s a bit of packet loss or jitter, it makes little difference.

Is an integrated set of voice, data and video communications applications, all of which leverage rich presence information and a common directory. A hosted UC solution involves the delivery of pre-integrated network-based applications. UC solutions simplify communications for end users by giving them ubiquitous and seamless access to various tools. The benefits of UC are based on the vision of ultimate flexibility in accessing communications and collaboration capabilities – anywhere, anytime, on any device and any network.

Uploading information is used to describe transferring data from your computer to the Internet or another remote computer.

The User Datagram Protocol is the IP protocol that delivers data in the same manner in which it was sent. For example if the sender transmits 20 bytes in a packet, they are delivered to the receiver as 20 bytes. 

UDP is an alternative communications protocol to TCP used primarily for establishing low-latency and loss-tolerating connections between applications on the internet. Where UDP enables process-to-process communication, TCP supports host-to-host communication. TCP sends individual packets and is considered a reliable transport medium; UDP sends messages, called datagrams, and is considered a best-effort mode of communications.

UDP is an ideal protocol for network applications in which perceived latency is critical. In order to increase the connection timeout you can modify it from the firewall access rules. Blueface recommends the UDP has a Keep Alive timeout set to “200 seconds”. Should the network go down, this window allows the phones to be pinged a few times to attempt a reconnection automatically. Some routers or firewalls may have this predefined at a lower value.

Different access levels can be granted to each user. For example, users designated as: ‘Customer Administrators’ will have access to more features than ‘Regular Users’. The UC Portal provides administrators with the ability to create users and then to configure the settings for that user.

A ubiquitous type of copper cabling used in telephone wiring and local area networks (LANs). 

Connectivity option:  is a technology providing data transmission faster than ADSL. Also known as FTTN (Fibre To The Neighbourhood) it offers speeds of up to 52 Mbit/s downstream and 16 Mbit/s upstream.

Users with more advanced LAN setups may have requirements for each of their hosted devices to operate on a VLAN. VLAN tagging is a method through which more than one VLAN is handled on a port. VLAN tagging is used to tell which packet belongs to which VLAN on the other side. To make recognition easier, a packet is tagged with a VLAN tag in the Ethernet. Appropriate VLAN tags can be set on the UC Portal. 

Your phone calls are diverted to voicemail when you’re unavailable. You can use Blue face’s toolbox to manage your voicemail. Individual voicemail boxes are available for all UC Portal users. Voicemail may be accessed through 3 avenues: through the UC Porta, through the handset and as an audio file sent to User’s email.

It is a fully customizable video conferencing tool that utilizes the latest WebRTC technology and the UB8 and Opus codecs for video and audio

This enables IP traffic to travel securely over a public TCP/IP network by encrypting all traffic from one network to another. A VPN uses “tunnelling” to encrypt all information at the IP level. 

A wide area network is a variety of computer networks connected together and covering a very large geographic area. 

Allows access to all functionalities of the platform including creating and managing resellers, customer accounts, customer admins, group monitors, and regular users.

Allows Users to modify portal translations and email templates. This role is added on top of White Label (WL) Administrator permission levels.

Also referred to as The Web, it is a branch of the Internet which uses text, images, video and other elements to provide information on any topic you can imagine.

In a network latency, a synonym for delay, is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another. Latency is measured by sending a packet that is returned to the sender and the round-trip time is considered the latency.

A modem is a device for sending computer data over a voice phone line.

Two or more computers that are connected so users can share files and devices (for example, printers, servers and storage devices).

This is a program that allows a computer to link to another computer via the Internet. Often information and data can be downloaded and exchanged.

A technique for routing data through a network by encapsulating data in to packets. These packets are then labelled with addresses and routing information and forwarded until they reach their intended destination.

It is a very small specialised switch. It permits any attached telephones to call each other using shorter numbers and requires the caller to select an “outside line” to make calls outside the switch. A VoIP based PBX is a very common device which can be hardware or a software at the user’s end that manages calls and diverts.

There are 2 kinds of Ports, Physical Port and Logical Port. A physical port is located on computer and telecommunication devices where you can physically connect to some other device, usually with a socket and plug of some kind. Logical port is a term used in programming. It is a logical connection place like on a router interface when you login you see SIP ports or RTP ports, Ports required by Blueface are UDP 5060-5061 for VoIP and UDP 10000-20000 for voice.

Power-cycle is a euphemism for asking you to switch off a device and switch it back on again.

PPP is a connection oriented protocol that establishes a link between two communication devices that encapsulates data packets (such as Internet packets) for transfer between two communication points. PPP allows end users (end points) to setup a logical connection and transfer data between communication points regardless of the underlying physical connection (such as Ethernet, ATM, or ISDN).

A protocol is a formalised set of rules that computers use to communicate. This strictly defines procedure and message formats allowing two or more systems to communicate over a transmission medium.

A proxy or proxy server is basically another computer which serves as a hub through which internet requests are processed. By connecting through one of these servers, your computer sends your requests to the proxy server which then processes your request and returns what you were wanting. In this way it serves as an intermediary between your home machine and the rest of the computers on the internet.

The world’s collection of interconnected public telephone networks, both commercial and government-owned.

QOS ensures the quality of your voice calls even when your broadband connection is being used for other items like downloading music or surfing the web. QOS always retains a specific amount of your bandwidth for voice calls so you can talk without any interruption or interference.

Is a term used to describe restarting your computer and operating system.

Is a piece of hardware that directs information to your computer this is what connects you to an Internet service provider for Internet access.

SIP is a protocol designed to allow personal computers to place telephone calls on the Internet. It is a standard protocol for initiating an interactive user session that involves multimedia elements such as video, voice, chat and gaming.

A Softphone is software installed on your computer that enables the use of VoIP without any hardware. You will need a headset or microphone and headphones to make phone calls. It allows you to make and receive phone calls without having a traditional phone.

A switch is a device that connects two separate data paths together. For example to connect two computers to one printer.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking is the use of voice over IP (VoIP) to facilitate the connection of a private branch exchange (PBX) to the Internet. In effect, the Internet replaces the conventional telephone trunk, allowing an enterprise to communicate with fixed and mobile telephone subscribers worldwide.

Unified Communications (UC) is equipment, software and services that facilitate the interactive use of multiple enterprise communications methods. UC products integrate communications channels (media), networks and systems, as well as IT business applications.

UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types.
Unified Communications tools can include services such as:

instant messaging (chat)

presence information (when a software or a tool publishes a presence state about current communication status)voice (including IP telephony)

mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach)

audio, web & video conferencing

desktop and data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards)

call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax)

Unified Communication is especially useful in an office environment as it can help employees in a variety of contexts:

Traditional office environments, with users on computers and using desk phones or softphones and individual webcams.

Enterprise conference rooms equipped with speaker phones, a shared display system, and a shared camera system (which might be traditional conferencing systems or high-end telepresence systems).

Remote employees working from mobile devices including tablets and smartphones, using the audio and video native to the device.

To find our more how Unified Communications can help your business watch this video.

VoIP is essentially the new standard for phones a bit like HD for televisions except it’s actually cheaper than the old telephone lines. The technology has actually been around for a while but it’s the improvements in broadband that have created huge growth in the past few years.

VoIP is basically Internet telephony: instead of your calls running through Eircom’s copper line coming in to your office, we process calls through the Internet.

As VoIP works through the Internet the one thing to make sure of is that you have a solid broadband connection. Your Internet may be good enough or could require to be upgraded to facilitate Blueface calls.

Read more about VoIP here.

Refers to products that can connect to each other without wires. These can include routers and laptops.