GLOSSARY OF TERMS - Dynamic Call Solutions

Glossary

This glossary of terms has been posted to assist you in the understanding of our technology as well as the understanding of other technologies available in both the commercial and private sectors today. Should there be a term not listed in the below, please feel free to communicate with us through our support page, via email to support@dynamiccallsolutions.ca or by initiating a live chat session by clicking on the chat icon found at the bottom right-hand corner of the website page you are currently on.

Thank you on behalf of Dynamic Call Solutions!!

Analog or Analogue Signal

An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous voltage of the signal varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves. It differs from a digital signal, in which a continuous quantity is represented by a discrete function which can only take on one of a finite number of values. The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey analog signals.

Broadband

In general, broadband refers to telecommunication in which a wide band of frequencies is available to transmit information. Most Internet services providers (ISP) offer a broadband connection; I.E.: Videotron “Cable” internet. Dynamic Call Solutions’ Hosted PBX services require a broadband Internet connection for optimum performance.

Centrex

Centrex is a PBX-like service providing switching at the central office instead of at the customer’s premises. Typically, the telephone company owns and manages all the communications equipment and software necessary to implement the Centrex service and then sells various services to the customer. Dynamic Call Solutions’ hosted services offers a myriad of Centrex type services at a low cost with no long term contracts and limited hardware expense. Essentially an IP Phone gets you on your way to utilizing all the benefits of DCS’ Virtual PBX.

Digital or Digital Signaling

A digital signal is a physical signal that is a representation of a sequence of discrete values. For example of an arbitrary bit stream, or of a digitized (sampled and analog-to-digital converted) analog signal. In computer architecture and other digital systems, a waveform that switches between two voltage levels representing the two states of a Boolean value (0 and 1) is referred to as a digital signal, even though it is an analog voltage waveform, since it is interpreted in terms of only two levels.

Email

E-mail or Email (electronic mail) is the exchange of computer-stored messages by telecommunication. E-mail messages are usually encoded in ASCII text. However, you can also send non-text files, such as graphic images and sound files, as attachments sent in binary streams. E-mail was one of the first uses of the Internet and is still the most popular use.

Firewall

In computing, a firewall is a network security system that controls the incoming and outgoing network traffic based on an applied rule set. A firewall establishes a barrier between a trusted, secure internal network and another network (e.g., the Internet) that is assumed not to be secure and trusted. Firewalls exist both as software to run on general purpose hardware and as a hardware appliance.

Hardware

Computer hardware (usually called hardware where computers are topic of discussion) is the collection of physical elements that constitutes a computer system. Computer hardware is the physical parts or components of a computer, such as the monitor, mouse, keyboard, computer data storage, hard disk drive (HDD), system unit (graphic cards, sound cards, memory, motherboard and chips), and so on, all of which are physical objects that can be touched (that is, they are tangible). As opposed to software, which is instructions that can be stored and run by hardware. Dynamic Call Solutions Hosted PBX is a web based phone service and in turn, our clients need not purchase any expensive hardware to use our system.

Hosted PBX

This is what we are all about here at Dynamic Call Solutions. A Hosted PBX service such as the one provided by DCS gives you the freedom from the hardware of an on premise solution. Allowing you to benefit from all the features that a feature rich, in-house solution offers. Be it the full functionality of your traditional PBX right down to voicemail and the now popular voicemail forwarding and email notification. Local and Toll free numbers give you a presence at remote offices and all the while the above mentioned leaves you free of any expensive hardware costs. Dynamic Call Solutions carries the weight of housing & protecting all of your company’s sensitive information behind firewalled security and redundancy across multiple servers making it all available to you over your internet connection.

Hosted Service

Hosted Service or a Hosted Service Provider is a business or business model that delivers a combination of traditional IT functions such as infrastructure, applications (software as a service), security, monitoring, storage over the Internet or other wide area networks (WAN) combinings the abilities of an application service provider (ASP) and an Internet service provider (ISP).

This approach enables customers to consolidate and outsource much of their IT needs, in our case that of a traditonal PBX phone system for a predictable recurring fee. We give customers a means to rapidly and efficiently distribute information and resources among employees, customers, partners and the general public.

Hosted Service Providers benefit from economies of scale and operate on a one-to-many business model, delivering the same software and services to many customers at once.

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing and telephony. Dynamic Call Solutions’ telephony offerings, hosted in the “Cloud” environment are made accessible through the use of the internet.

Internet phone

Internet phones, or IP phones, use packet-switched VoIP, or Internet telephony, to transmit telephone calls over the Internet as opposed to the circuit-switched telephony used by the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The advantage to Internet phone calls is that unlike regular long-distance calls, online phone calls are free — there’s no fees beyond the cost of your Internet access.

Also referred to as online phones, an Internet phone can be a physical telephone with built-in IP technology and an RJ-45 Ethernet connector instead of the RJ-11 phone connector found in standard phones, or it can be a voice-capable computer that uses VoIP software like Skype and any of a number of free softphones available today. This flexibility makes it possible for IP phone calls to function as Internet phone-to-phone, Internet phone-to-PC, PC-to-PC or PC-to-phone calls. Dynamic Call Solutions offers free IP Phones with your 36 month commitment.

Intranet

An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to share information, operational systems, or computing services within an organization. This term is used in contrast to extranet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network within an organization. Essentially an in-house website.

IP-PBX (Internet Protocol Public Branch Exchange)

PBX is a system that connects telephone extensions of a company to outside public telephone network as well as to mobile networks. An IP (Internet Protocol) PBX (Private branch exchange) is a PBX that provides audio, video, and instant messaging communication through the TCP/IP protocol stack for its internal network and interconnects its internal network with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) for telephony communication.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) gateways can be combined with traditional PBX functionality enabling businesses to use their managed intranet to help reduce long distance expenses, enjoy the benefits of a single network for voice and data and advanced CTI features or be used on a pure IP system which in most cases give greater cost savings, greater mobility, and increased redundancy.

An IP-PBX can exist as a hardware object, or virtually, as a software system. Dynamic Call Solutions offers full IP-PBX functionality to you through the “Cloud’….virtually!

IP Phone

IP Telephony

IP Telephony falls under the umbrella of Voice over IP (VoIP). It is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Other terms commonly associated with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service.

The term Internet telephony specifically refers to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding. Instead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, however, the digital information is packetized, and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network (TCP/IP). Such transmission entails careful considerations about resource management different from time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks.;

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)

Integrated Services for Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the traditional circuits of the public switched telephone network. Prior to ISDN, the telephone system was viewed as a way to transport voice, with some special services available for data. The key feature of ISDN is that it integrates speech and data on the same lines, adding features that were not available in the classic telephone system. There are several kinds of access interfaces to ISDN defined as Basic Rate Interface (BRI), Primary Rate Interface (PRI), Narrowband ISDN (N-ISDN), and Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN).Costs associated to ISDN lines are prohibitive.

IT (Information Technology)

Information technology (IT) is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, e-commerce and computer services.

Key System

Key systems are generally used by companies with 50 employees or less. Key system telephones have multiple buttons (“keys”) and lights that let you know which lines are occupied. Initiating a call is simplistic, pressing a button to directly select the telephone company’s central office phone lines. Key systems are generally made up of one unit, attendant`s phone or an entirely separate box that controllers a limited number of lines for a limited number of extensions. Key systems are suitable for smaller companies where less functionality is not a concern. Simple elements such as hold buttons, lights, intercoms, paging, speakerphones, privacy, music-on-hold, long-distance restriction, timers, and memory dialing. Dynamic Call Solutions’ hosted services are a cost-effective alternative to key systems.

Online

The term “online” has a specific meaning in regard to computer technology and telecommunications in which “online” indicates a state of connectivity, specifically to an internet connection.

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)

A PDA or Personal Digital Assistant, also known as a handheld PC is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. The term evolved from Personal Desktop Assistant, a software term for an application that prompts or prods the user of a computer with suggestions or provides quick reference to contacts and other lists. PDAs were discontinued in early 2010s after the widespread adoption of smartphones. Nearly all PDAs have the ability to connect to the Internet. A PDA has an electronic visual display, enabling it to include a web browser, all models also have audio capabilities enabling use as a portable media player, and also enabling most of them to be used as mobile phones. Most PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide Area Networks. Most PDAs employ touchscreen technology.

PBX (Private Branch Exchange)

A PBX, in the traditional sense, connects telephone company trunk lines with individual user lines and equipment inside your organization. A PBX is essentially your own, smaller version of the phone company’s central switching office. It controls all your incoming and outgoing telephone traffic, connecting outside callers with inside extensions and internal extensions to each other. A PBX allows you to have fewer outside lines than extensions because the assumption is that not all extensions will be in use at once. PBXs can also be large, with hundreds of lines and thousands of extensions spanning across multiple locations. The benefits of a Hosted PBX such as that of Dynamic Call Solutions are its many automated features, easy setup, and flexibility. It can be designed for your company’s specific needs TODAY!! It’s scalable for easily adding new lines and features when you need them unlike a traditional PBX which requires additional hardware, time to implement and install. Our Virtual PBX can have simple or sophisticated features, and individual lines may have different functions on them.

Road Warrior

The term Road Warrior is generally attributed to people who are mostly traveling or “on the road” (away from their office or desk) but need to make heavy use of their laptop and/or phone. Hosted PBX services such the find me/follow me functionality available from Dynamic Call Solutions gives the appearance that you are at your desk and ready to server your client base at a second’s notice.

Router

A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. A router is connected to two or more data lines from different networks (as opposed to a network switch, which connects data lines from one single network).The most familiar type of routers are home and small office routers that simply pass data, such as web pages, email, IM, and videos between the home computers and the Internet. An example of a router would be the owner’s cable or DSL router, which connects to the Internet through an ISP. More sophisticated routers, such as enterprise routers, connect large business or ISP networks up to the powerful core routers that forward data at high speed along the optical fiber lines of the Internet backbone. Though routers are typically dedicated hardware devices, use of software-based routers has grown increasingly common.

Server

A server is an instance running of an application or software capable of accepting requests from the client and giving responses accordingly. Servers can run on any computer including dedicated computers, which individually are also often referred to as “the server”. In many cases, a computer can provide several services and have several servers running. The advantage of running servers on a dedicated computer is security. For this reason most of the servers are processes and designed in that they can be run on specific computer(s).

Servers operate within a client-server architecture. Servers are computer programs running to serve the requests of other programs, the clients. Thus, the server performs some tasks on behalf of clients. It facilitates the clients to share data, information or any hardware and software resources. The clients typically connect to the server through the network but may run on the same computer.

Servers often provide essential services across a network, either to private users inside a large organization or to public users via the Internet. Typical computing servers are database server, file server, mail server, print server, web server, gaming server, and application server.

Software

Computer software or simply software is any set of machine-readable instructions that directs a computer’s processor to perform specific operations. Computer software contrasts with computer hardware, which is the physical component of computers. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used without the other. Using a musical analogy, hardware is like a musical instrument and software is like the notes played on that instrument.

Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and their associated documentation. The word software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. Software is stored in computer memory and is intangible, i.e. it cannot be touched.

Spam

Spam, Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email (UBE), is a subset of electronic spam involving nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Clicking on links in spam email may send users to phishing web sites or sites that are hosting malware. Spam email may also include malware as scripts or other executable file attachments. Definitions of spam usually include the aspects that email is unsolicited and sent in bulk. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s. Botnets, networks of virus-infected computers, are used to send about 80% of spam. Since the expense of the spam is borne mostly by the recipient, it is effectively postage due advertising.

T1

A T-1 trunk could transmit 24 telephone calls at a time, because it used a digital carrier signal called Digital Signal 1 (DS-1).T-1’s maximum data transmission rate is 1.544 megabits per second.

Trojan/ Trojan horse

A Trojan horse, or Trojan, in computing is a generally a non-self-replicating type of malware program containing malicious code that, when executed, carries out actions determined by the nature of the Trojan, typically causing loss or theft of data, and possible system harm. The term is derived from the story of the wooden horse used to trick defenders of Troy into taking concealed warriors into their city in ancient Anatolia, because computer Trojans often employ a form of social engineering, presenting themselves as routine, useful, or interesting in order to persuade victims to install them on their computers.

Virtual PBX

Virtual PBX systems or hosted PBX systems deliver PBX functionality as a service like the one offered my Dynamic Call Solutions and is available over the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or the Internet. Hosted PBXs were typically provided by a telephone company but now with service providers like Dynamic Call Solutions, using equipment located in the premises of a provider’s data center. This means the customer does not need to buy or install PBX equipment. Generally the service is provided by a lease agreement and the provider can, in some configurations, use the same switching equipment to service multiple hosted PBX customers.

The first hosted PBX services were feature-rich compared to most premise-based systems of the time. Some PBX functions, such as follow-me calling, appeared in a hosted service before they became available in hardware PBX equipment. Since its introduction, updates and new offerings have moved feature sets in both directions. It is possible to get hosted PBX services that include feature sets from minimal functionality to advanced feature combinations.

VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network)

A VLAN is a group of stations or computers if you will, with a common set of requirements residing at different location. VLANs are similar to a physical LAN but allow you to group computers as though they were at the same location and on the same LAN segment.

VoIP/VOIP/voice-over-Internet protocol

Voice over Internet Protocol is a hardware and software grouping that gives people the ability to use the Internet to transmit telephone calls by sending voice data over the web using TCP/IP rather than the traditional method of the public switched telephone networks.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)

VPN is a network that is constructed by using public wires (public telecommunication infrastructure) usually the world wide web, connecting to a private network like that found in the private sector. There are a number of systems that enable you to create networks using the Internet as the medium for transporting data securely accessing a company’s network. The use of a VPN ensures privacy through security procedures and tunneling protocols such as the Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). Information being sent is encrypted and then decrypted when being received.

WAN (Wide Area Network)

A wide area network (WAN) is a network that covers a broad area or a “wide area” over telecommunications networks that link metropolitan, regional, national or international boundaries using exiting telecommunication infrastructure. Large corporations and government offices use WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and suppliers from various locations around the world. In essence, this mode of telecommunication allows a businesses to execute daily tasks regardless of where they may be worldwide. The Internet can be considered a WAN as well, and is used by businesses, governments, organizations, and individuals for just about anything one would need to do in their daily affairs.

Web/ World Wide Web/ WWW/ W3

The World Wide Web (www, W3) is an information system of linked documents and assorted media types that are accessed over the Internet. It is also commonly known as the Web. Individual pages on the World Wide Web are called web pages and are accessible by way of software programs on end user terminals known as a web browser. Web pages may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia components accessed via hyperlinks.

Web mail

Webmail (or web-based email) is any email client that is accessible through a web browser running on a web server. An example of a webmail software is SquirrelMail. Examples of webmail providers are AOL Mail, Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail. Webmail providers offer email access using a webmail client and many of them also offer access by way of a desktop email client using standard email protocols. An example of a secure (Encrypted Web based email) would be Hushmail.

As with any web application, webmail’s main advantage over the use of a desktop email client is the ability to send and receive email anywhere from a web browser anywhere in the world. Its main disadvantage is the need to be connected to the internet while using it.

Wired network

In the computer world, the term “wired” is used to differentiate between a wireless connections and networks or other infrastructure that requires cables. While wireless devices communicate through the air, a wired setup uses physical cables to pass information between different devices and computer systems.

A wired network, commonly referred as “wired configuration”. Most wired networks use Ethernet cables (eg: Cat5E) to transfer data between computers connected on that network. In a small wired network, one router may be used to connect all the computers. Larger networks usually incorporate multiple routers or switches connecting to each other. One of these devices typically connects to a DSL, ADSL or cable modem, T1 line, or other type of Internet connection that provides Web access to all devices connected to the network.

Wireless network

A wireless network is any type of computer network that uses wireless technology for connecting networks.

Wireless networking is a method that homes, telecommunications networks and businesses avoid the cost normally associated when one introduces cables into a building or a physical connection between equipment housed at different locations. Wireless telecommunications networks use and are managed through radio communication.

Examples of wireless networks include cell phone networks, Wi-Fi local networks and terrestrial microwave networks.