Vehicle Location Tracking Device. See Location Tracking.
Very Low Frequency. That portion of the electromagnetic spectrum having continuous frequencies
Novell Virtual Loadable Module network client architecture uses packet burst technology, so ample packets are sent without waiting for packet
Visitors' Location Register. A wireless telecommunications
Very Large Scale Integration. The art of
Voice Mail, Voice Messaging or Virtual memory. See Virtual Storage and Voice Mail.
Virtual Machine. IBM's mainframe operating system.
Virtual Machine. See Java Virtual Machine.
Acronym for "VersaModule-Eurocard." A one through 21 slot, mechanical and electrical bus standard originally developed by the Munich, Germany division of Motorola in the late 70s. VME uses most of the bus structure from then current Motorola's VersaBus board standard along with the newly developed DIN 41612 standard pin-in-socket connector for enhanced reliability. After
An enhanced VME bus standard which includes multiplexed address and data cycles with 40 and 64 bit address modes and 64 bit data transfer modes allowing up to 80 MB/s transfer speed. This standard is under the ANSI ballot process conducted by VITA. See VME.
A VITA draft standard that provides extra functionality to VME64 including 5 row J1/P1 and J2/P2 connectors that support live insertion on both 3U and 6U VME
VersaModule-Eurocard BUS. A 32-bit bus developed by Motorola, Signetics, Mostek and Thompson CSF. Used widely in industrial, commercial and military applications with over 300 manufacturers of VMEbus products worldwide. VME64 is an expanded version that provides 64-bit data transfer and addressing.
Voice Messaging Educational Committee. An organization
Validation Message Fraud
Voice Messaging Interface.
Validation Message Fraud
David Hester wrote to me: "I work for an ISP. We buy dial up service from providers in areas where we do not have our own POPs. We call these POPs Vendor Managed Networks or VMNs. We used to call them Other Peoples' Networks, or OPNs, but that term has been depricated by VMN. I think that the term VMN is a more descriptive term and could be useful to others in the telecom field."
Violation Monitoring and Removal. The process of removing a violations which are
Virtual Memory System
VOTS. A Digital Equipment Corp. software product that modifies Digital's DECnet transport layer to conform to the International Standards Organization (ISO) Transport Protocol Class Four (TP4).
Voice Messaging User Interface Forum. A standards body formed by voice messaging end users, service providers and manufacturers to define a minimum set of common human interface specifications for voice messaging systems.
Voice Message Exchange. One day in 1979, Gordon Matthews came back from
Virtual private NETwork. An MCI (now MCI Worldcom) term for a service it offers to customers who want to join
Via Net Loss. A loss objective for trunks, the value of which has been selected to obtain a satisfactory balance between two data terminals for the duration of the call. Loss value in db assigned to a circuit to compensate for it's added propagation delay, terminal delay or loss variability. Example: VNL for Satellite channels is 4db; VNL for Microwave channels is 0.0015 x route miles; All other terrestrial is +0.4db.
Voice News Network.
See Virtual Network Operator.
Virtual Network Services. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) term, referring
Verification Office.
Variable Optical Attenuator.
Voice over ATM. Voice Over ATM. Voice over ATM enables an ATM switch to carry voice traffic (for example, voice telephone calls and faxes) over an ATM network. When sending voice traffic over ATM, the voice traffic is encapsulated using AAL1/AAL2 ATM packets.
Voice Over Broadband.
Voice Over BroadBand.
In February, 1996 a newspaper called, Investor's Business Daily, ran a story entitled "Is Your Office at Home Making You Sick?" It said that more than 20 million American workers are
Development of specific word sets to be used for speaker independent recognition applications.
Voice
Video On Demand. At one stage it was
Voice Operated Device Anti-Sing. A device used to prevent the overall voice frequency
Experts recommend using vodka as a cleaning solution for diamond
Voice over a DSL line ” Digital Subscriber Line. Voice phone calls over DSL. It's making a voice phone call over a digital subscriber line. See DSL.
Voice over Frame Relay is the transmission of voice over a Frame Relay network, VoFR is one of a family of "Voice over Packet" technologies that includes VoATM (Voice over ATM) and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). Frame Relay was developed specifically for LAN-to-LAN internetworking across a WAN (Wide Area Network), and works quite well in support of such traffic. LAN traffic has no expectations in terms of QoS (Quality of Service) ” meaning it may be delayed by more important voice calls ” and Frame Relay
First, manufacturers have developed routers that allow carriers to offer various levels of service through non-standard priority queuing mechanisms. VoFR frames can be
Second, VoFR employs voice compression algorithms in order to improve performance. Voice, of course, always is analog in its native form. To support voice over a digital network of any
Third, various mechanisms have been developed to select different paths through the network. Most significant among these is MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching), which was standardized by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and which is based on Cisco's proprietary Tag Switching protocol. MPLS is capable of selecting a high bandwidth, low latency path through the network in support of VoFR. In addition to priority queuing and compression mechanisms, VoFR benefits from plenty of bandwidth in the Frame Relay network core. This responsibility is entirely the carrier's. If the switches or circuits along a particular VoFR
Voice-Operated Gain Adjusting Device. A voice-operated compressor circuit that is designed to provide a near-constant level of output signal from a range of input amplitudes. Such a circuit has a fast attack time with a relatively slow release time to avoid excess volume compression at the system output.
Voice over HDLC
A feature that
Used in multipoint video conferencing so all sites automatically see the video of the person speaking.
A microphone/camera that is activated in response to voice. Imagine you're watching a videoconference going on in four locations. You can hear what everyone is saying. What you need is to be able to see the person who is speaking the loudest, and therefore, presumably the principal speaker ” the person whose attention everyone should be focused on. In voice activated video, the videoconferencing system senses who's speaking the loudest and throws that person's face up on everyone's screen.
VAC. A method of conserving transmission capacity by not transmitting pauses in speech.
See VAD.
A third-party provider of call-center integration. These networks typically offer
System software providing the necessary logic to carry out the functions
Also called a voice card or speech card. A Voice Board is an IBM PC- or AT-compatible expansion card which can perform voice processing functions. A voice board has several important characteristics: It has a computer bus connection. It has a telephone line interface. It typically has a voice bus connection. And it supports one of several operating systems, e.g. MS-DOS, UNIX. At a minimum, a voice board will usually include support for going on and off-hook (answering, initiating and terminating a call); notification of call termination (hang-up detection); sending flash hook; and dialing digits (touchtone and
An X.400 term. A body part sent or forwarded from an originator to a recipient which conveys voice encoded data and related information. The
Pick up a phone, call a VoxML-enabled Web site, ask it questions using your voice and what's known as "natural voice commands" (such as "When is my plane leaving?") and hear responses to your questions. This uses an upcoming technology called Voice Markup Language (VoxML), which several manufacturers plan to develop as an open platform and submit to the World Wide Web Consortium for standards approval. The idea is to VoxML-enable your Web site so it can respond to voice recognition.
These are voice mailboxes which contain pre-recorded information that can be updated as frequently as the provider of the mailboxes desires and can be accessed by the public 24 hours a day. Voice bulletin boards can be used by city or county departments which receive a large number of calls asking for routine information, e.g., summer programs for
Picture an open PC. Peer down into it. At the bottom of the PC, you'll see a printed circuit board containing chips and empty connectors. That board is called the motherboard. Fatherboards are inserted into the connectors on the motherboard. These fatherboards do things on the PC ” like pump out video to your screen or material to your printer or your local area network. The motherboard controls which device does what WHEN by sending signals along the motherboard's data bus ” basically a circuit that connects all the various fatherboards through their connectors. That data bus was not designed for voice. For voice you need another bus. Several voice processing manufacturers have addressed that need by creating a voice bus at the top of their PC-based voice processing cards. They have tiny pins
A telephone call established for the purpose of transmitting voice, rather than data.
One manufacturer describes this as allowing a phone user to have calls automatically
VCO. A reduced form of TRS (Telecommunication Relay Service) where the person with the hearing disability speaks directly to the other end users. The Communications Assistant then types the response back to the person with the hearing disability. The Communications Assistant does not voice the conversation.
A channel suitable for transmission of speech, analog or digital data, or
A circuit able to carry one telephone conversation or its equivalent, i.e. the typical analog telephone channel coming into your house or office. It's the standard subunit in which telecommunication capacity is counted. It has a bandwidth between 300 Hz and 3000 Hz. The U.S. analog equivalent is 3 KHz. The digital equivalent is 56 Kbps in North American and 64 Kbps in Europe. This is not sufficient for high fidelity voice transmission. You'd probably need at least 10,000 Hz. But it's sufficient to recognize and understand the person on the other end.
The element in a dynamic microphone which vibrates when sound waves strike it. The coil of wire in a loudspeaker through which audio frequency current is sent to produce vibrations of the cone and reproduction of sound.
See V-Commerce.
Process of reducing a voice signal to use less bandwidth during transmission. That's the obvious meaning. In telecommunications where voice was originally encoded digitally at 64 Kbps using PCM, voice compression now means to compress a voice channel to obtain a channel of 32 Kbps or fewer, nowadays to under 10 Kbps. See VoIP.
VCA. A device that, once upon a time, was necessary for connecting your own phone system to the nation's switched telephone network. Most phones now meet FCC (and other) safety standards, so VCAs are no longer necessary. Most phone systems (as opposed to phones) do have internal protection circuitry, as shown by the "F" (for fully protected) in their FCC registration number. The VCA was once called a Protective Connecting Arrangement (PCA).
An interface arrangement once provided by the telephone company to permit direct electrical connection of customer-provided voice terminal equipment to the national telephone network. No longer needed because of the FCC's Registration Program.
An SCSA definition. Encoded audio data.
The ability to tell your phone to dial by talking to it. Say, "Call Police" and it will automatically dial the police. This feature has enormous benefits for handicapped people. It will have greater benefits for normal people when the technology of voice recognition improves.
The conversion of an analog voice signal into binary (digital) bits for storage or transmission.
A Dialogic product that comes for MS-DOS, OS/2 and UNIX. In MSDOS, it is a terminate and stay resident (TSR) program which acts as a central server for MS-DOS based applications. It provides all of the services required to support installable device drivers for each hardware component and for the application. See also Device Driver.
This Voice DTMF (DUAL TONE MULTIPLE FREQUENCY) application allows a use of a voice mail system to take specific information from its customers 24 hours a day. By prompting callers to respond by speaking or pressing the keys of their touchtone phones, a city department, for example, could plan service calls, building inspections or send out appropriate forms.
See VXML.
See VFRAD and FRF11.
VF. Any of the frequencies in the band 300-3,400 Hz that are transmitted in telephony systems to reproduce human speech voice with reasonable fidelity. Some Oriental languages have less than satisfactory results with this narrow a band, and emerging ISDN implementations are increasing it for them. See Voice Frequencies.
VF. Those frequencies lying within that part of the audio range that is employed for the transmission of speech. In telephony, the usable voice frequency band ranges from a nominal 300 Hz to 3400 Hz. In telephony, the bandwidth allocated for a single voice frequency transmission channel is usually 4 KHz, including guard bands.
A telegraph system permitting use of up to 20 channels on a single voice circuit by frequency division multiplexing.
A communications channel which can transmit and receive voice conversation in the range of 300 Hertz to 3000 Hertz.
VGF. A line suitable for voice, low-speed data, facsimile, or telegraph service.
The term generally refers to analog lines with the bandwidth required to transmit human voice, typically about four thousand Hertz (4KHz).
See Voice Switched.
Allows computer fax solutions to be store and forward hubs for both image as well as voice communication. Many of these products work on PC-based systems and offer all the capabilities of a message center.
See VIC.
A device that companies use to record their
A poorly designed voicemail system that has so many submenus one gets lost and has to hang up and call back. Also called Voice Mail Jail.
Voice Mail allows you to receive, edit and forward messages to one or more voice mailboxes in your company or in your universe of
In the fall of 1991, the Wall Street Journal carried a story negative on voice mail. Les Lesniak, Rolm's Senior VP Marketing disagreed. His reply published in the Journal is one of the finest
"The writer's observations ignore the way today's voice communication technology is making communication between people easier and more
"Voice messaging keeps calls confidential,
"To be successful, voice mail technology must be understood by users and supported by top management, And it must meet the needs of the customer. Training for all employees must be mandatory and the system must be administered and managed properly. 'Must answer' lines and
"Contrary to the writer's view, voice mail
75% of all business calls are not completed on the first attempt.
This can easily waste $50 to $150 per employee per month in toll charges.
Half of the calls are for one-way transfers of information.
Two
The average length of a voice mail message is 43 seconds. The average long distance call is 3.4 minutes. Voice mail is 80% faster. Here are the standard benefits of voice mail:
No more "telephone tag." Voice mail improves communications. It lets people communicate in
Shorter calls. When you leave messages on voice mail, your calls are invariably shorter. You get right to the point. Live communications
No more time zone/business hour dilemma. No more waiting till noon (or
Reduce labor costs, Instead of answering phones and taking messages, employees are free to do more
Fewer callbacks. In some cases, as many as 50%.
Improved message content. Voice mail is much more accurate and private than pink slips. Messages are in your own voice, with all the original intonations and inflections.
Less paging and shorter holding times.
Less peakload traffic.
24-hour availability.
Better customer service.
Voice mail allows work groups to stay in contact - morning, noon and night.
Voice mail reduces unwanted interruptions. See also Voice Mail Jail and Voice Mail System.
What happens when you reach a voice mail message and you try and reach a human by punching "0" (zero) and you get transferred to another voice mail box and you try again by punching "0" or some other number you're told to punch...and you never reach a human. You're stuck forever inside the bowels of a voice mail machine, being instructed to go from one box to another, never reaching a real human. You're in voice mail jail.
A device to record, store and retrieve voice messages. There are two types of voice mail devices ” those which are "stand alone" and those which profess some integration with the user's phone system. A stand alone voice mail is not dissimilar to a collection of single person answering machines, with several added features. You can instruct the machines (voice mail boxes) to forward messages among
An integrated voice mail system includes two additional features. First, it will tell you if you have any messages. It does this by lighting a light on your phone and/or putting a message on your phone's
There are other levels of integration. You might have a phone which has "soft" buttons and an alphanumeric display. That display might label your phone's soft
There are pros and cons to voice mail systems. Some employees will hide behind them, forwarding calls from their customers into voice mail boxes and never returning them. Some employees will make good use of them. They dial in for their messages, research what the customer wants and return the voice mail calls quickly. Many voice mail systems are being combined with automated attendants. Many are being combined with interactive voice processing systems, including sophisticated tie-ins to mainframe databases. Some people hate voice mail systems. Others love them. It all depends on how the system is used, managed and sold. See also Voice Mail, Audiotex, Automated Attendants, Information Center Mailboxes, Enhanced Call Processing and Voice Processing.
Voice Management is a fancy term for managing the health and performance of a corporation's voice network. Real-time processing of voice call data enables these systems to actively calculate performance metrics such as trunk
Trunk Performance: Displays the percent of circuits in a trunk group that are currently being utilized so technicians can determine if the
Route Analysis: A panel that displays how inbound and outbound calls route through the network. For instance by watching how inbound calls are transferred from auto attendant ports, a technician can determine if certain toll-free
Voice Over IP: By evaluating specific calling patterns, managers can determine the economic viability of implementing VoIP. Information provided also allows them to determine appropriate bandwidth requirements, based on
Call Stats: A department manager can see a real-time display of call activity within their department, even from multiple remote sites. Sales Managers particularly like this functionality.
System Alarms: Specific calls (i.e., 911) can be displayed at a receptionist's desk to direct emergency personnel where the call was originated. Technicians can be alerted to high trunk or port capacity conditions and quickly
A Voice Management platform also
Carrier
Total Cost Of Ownership: The voice network now includes
Jon A. Giberson of www.callaccounting.com helped compile this definition.
See Voice Browser.
The oral tradition of African American preachers using another's words. See also Plagiarism.
A leased service typically over dial up phone lines which provides the ability for a phone user to access a voice mail system and leave a message for a particular phone user. See Voice Mail System
See VMX.
Recording, storing, playing and distributing phone messages.
Voice Mail, where messages can be retrieved and
Call Answering, which routes calls made to a busy/no answer extension into a voice mailbox;
Call Processing, which lets callers route themselves among voice mailboxes via their touchtone phones; and
Information Mailbox, which stores general recorded information for callers to hear.
A new type of modem which handles both voice and data over standard analog phone lines. A voice modem is the classic computer telephony device, since it applies intelligence to the making and receiving of normal analog phone calls. Such voice modem might be a
You're about to give a speech. Someone has to introduce you. Suddenly, over the
An organization formed to stop regulatory attempts to stifle the growth of voice on the Internet. See VON Coalition. 802-878-9884 and www.von.org
A voice-operated relay circuit that permits the equivalent of push-to-talk operation of a transmitter by the operator.
A feature on a phone system ” namely that while you are speaking to someone on the phone, your operator can talk to you "over" the conversation you're having. What happens is that you hear your operator in your telephone's handset receiver, but the person you're speaking with can't. You can reply to the operator (telling him/her you'll be one minute, please call back, etc.) by
See VoFR.
VoIP. A VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone call is transmitted over a data network. The "Internet Protocol" is a
First, they may
The cost of terminating the VoIP call into the traditional phone network. Figure a penny a minute.
The price of a standard circuit switched TDM call. They've been getting cheaper over the years.
How much tax is levied on both. Taxes are horrendous on traditional circuit switched long distance calls. They aren't so big, yet, on VoIP calls, which are
Second, you may achieve benefits of managing a voice and data network as one network. If you have IP phones, moves, adds and changes will be easier and cheaper. IP phones are basically networked computers. They have individual numbers, with memories, user profiles. Their software upgrades are typically
Third, ” and the key attraction of IP telephony ” is added (and integrated) new services, including integrated messaging, voice emails, number portability, caller ID with
See VoMBN
Gives attendants and phone users the ability to dial loudspeaker paging equipment throughout the building. An unbelievably useful feature, if your people are prone to wander.
Call a phone number, have an interactive voice response system answer you, respond to your words with speech recognition, read your emails or the news with text-to-speech skills, perhaps even allow you to "surf" the Web. The classic definition of a portal is a door, gate, or
See Voiceprint.
Think of voice processing as a voice computer. Where a computer has a keyboard for entering information, a voice processing system recognizes touch- tones from remote telephones. It may also recognize spoken words. Where a computer has a screen for showing results, a voice processing system uses a digitized
Whatever a computer can do, a voice processing system can too, from looking up train timetables to moving calls around a business (auto attendant) to taking messages (voice mail). The only limitation on a voice processing system is that you can't present as many alternatives on a phone as you can on a screen. The caller's brain simply can't remember more than a few. With voice processing, you have to present the
Voice processing is the broad term made up of two narrower terms ” call processing and content processing. Call processing consists of physically moving the call around. Think of call processing as switching. Content consists of actually doing something to the call's content, like digitizing it and storing it on a hard disk, or editing it, or recognizing it (voice recognition) or some purpose (e.g. using it as input into a computer program.) See Voice Board, Voice Response Unit and Voice Server.
See VPIM.
The ability of a machine to recognize your particular voice. This contrasts with speech recognition, which is different. Speech recognition is the ability of a machine to understand human speech ” yours and most everyone else's. Voice recognition needs training. Speech recognition doesn't. See Speaker Dependent and Speaker Independent Voice Recognition.
VRU. Think of a Voice Response Unit (also called Interactive Voice Response Unit) as a voice computer. Where a computer has a keyboard for entering information, an IVR uses remote touchtone telephones. Where a computer has a screen for showing the results, an IVR uses a digitized synthesized voice to "read" the screen to the distant caller. An IVR can do whatever a computer can, from looking up train timetables to moving calls around an automatic call distributor (ACD). The only limitation on an IVR is that you can't present as many alternatives on a phone as you can on a screen. The caller's brain simply won't remember more than a few. With IVR, you have to present the menus in smaller chunks. See IVR and Voice Board.
Message system that stores verbal messages (from callers or operator) for automatic retrieval at the customer's convenience.
Multiple Digital Intertie Buses connected in series to all nodes. Provides extra channels for voice data transmission when direct link (DI) channels are busy.
A PC sitting on a LAN (Local Area Network) and containing voice files which are accessible by the PCs on the LAN. Such voice files may be transmitted on the LAN or over phone lines under the control of the PCs on the LAN. A voice server might contain voice mail. It might contain voice annotated electronic mail. Its primary function is to store voice in such a way that it's accessible easily. Voice servers are typically faster, have more disk capacity and more backup provisions than normal PCs. According to a letter I received in early May, 1993 from the
A new name for dial tone.
Voice Stop is a means for callers to interrupt a menu prompt or other instruction on a voice processing system by merely speaking into the phone. This is a capability that is similar to pressing a digit on the touch-tone pad in order to stop a recording or a prompt from continuing. Unlike Voice Cut-Through, Voice Stop does not actually analyze the word being spoken. voice Stop technology senses energy on the telephone line and stops execution based on that energy. For example, a train
Voice mail. A PBX service that allows voice messages to be stored digitally in secondary storage and retrieved remotely by dialing access and identification codes. See Voice Mail System.
A device which responds to voice. When the device hears a voice, it turns on and transmits it, muting the receive side. The most common voice-switched device is the desk speakerphone. With voice switching, it's easy to hog a circuit. Just keep making a noise. Watch out for voice hogging. If you're calling someone and waiting for them by listening in on your speakerphone, mute your speakerphone. This way you'll hear them when they answer.
Equipment used in voice and video conferences. The equipment is activated by sounds of sufficient amplitude; hopefully speech, but also loud noises. Fast switching activates microphones so that only one conference participant can speak at a time. See also Voice Activated Video.
A pretentious AT&T term for a Telephone.
The process of verifying one's claimed identity through analyzing voice patterns.
A transmission service with a bandwidth considered suitable for transmission of audio signals. The frequency range generally is 300 or 500 hertz to 3,000 or 3,400 hertz ” the frequency range the common analog home phone service is made at.
A voice recognition term. A voiceprint is a speech template used to recognize and verify callers. For example, Home shopping Network. When a voiceprint system is operating, the user's speech is compared to the stored voiceprints. If they match, the system recognizes the word and executes the command.
VoiceXML (VXML) is a platform independent structured language created using the extensible markup language (XML) specification to deliver voice content through several different media like the web and phone systems. It has a format similar to other structured languages like HTML, however it is entirely defined within the XML standard specification. Voice XML provides a uniform development environment that allows a business to build on its web investments for voice including application integration code, business rules, and personalized software. Voice and web channels can share the same back end integrated databases facilitating a complete view for the customer, regardless of how they choose to interact with the enterprise. VoiceXML provides the framework for:
Delivering synthesized or digitized sound
Recognizing user input
Recording user input
Controlling call flow
Transferring and disconnecting callers
A VoiceXML document is
Tag Function
<assign> Assign a value to a variable
<audio> Play an audio clip
<block> A container of executable code
<catch> Catch an event
The structure of a VXML document is very similar to an HTML document, even though the tags and syntax of the languages are different. However, the basic similarities of HTML and VXML make it easy for a savvy web developer to learn the syntax of VXML quickly and begin to create simple or complex voice interfaces without having to know the technical details of the voice system.
Like the traditional web server VXML
For example, a person who wants to check their bank account balance to make sure they have enough money to write a check could call their bank and access their automated customer service department. If the phone system is configured with an interactive voice response system, it is able to present and guide the caller to the point where they can check their available balance. After entering their account number and password the caller is presented with a menu of options. The caller presses the keypad number, which sends a request for their available balance. That input is interpreted and a request for the available balance is sent to the document server. The document server accepts the request, looks up the account and authenticates the user from the previously entered information. Once the document server has authenticated the request it generates a VXML document containing the account balance. The VXML document is sent to the interpreter and
The VoiceXML Forum is an industry consortium engaged in educational and marketing activities in support of the VoiceXML (Voice eXtensible Markup Language) specifications and standards being developed by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). VXML will make the Web accessible and
Voice over Internet Protocol. The technology used to transmit voice conversations over a data network using the Internet Protocol. Such data network may be the Internet or a corporate Intranet. For much longer explanations, see VoFR, Voice over IP, VoIP Forum, Skype and Vonage.
Voice over Internet Protocol. The Voice over IP Forum was formed in 1996 by Cisco Systems, VocalTec, Dialogic, 3Com, Netspeak and others as a working group of the International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium (IMTC), which promotes the implementation of the ITU-T H.323 standard. The VoIP Forum is focused on extending the ITU-T standards to provide implementation recommendations as a means of supporting Voice over IP in order that devices of disparate manufacture can support voice communications over packet networks such as the Internet. By way of example, the VoIP Forum intends to establish directory services standards in order that Internet voice users can find each other. They also plan to port touch-tone signals to the Internet to allow the use of ACDs and voice mail systems. See also VON Coalition.
VolanoMark is a popular Java benchmark for measuring server throughput... it measures messages per second.
Computer storage that is erased when power is turned off. RAM is volatile storage.
An MCI term used to denote a volume of calls. Based on the words "Volume Serial." The term "Volser" can be applied to the manual collection of calls from a switch on a switch tape or through call data transmitted via NEMAS.
The unit of measurement of electromotive force. Voltage is always
An instrument for measuring voltages, resistance and current.
Electricity is a essentially a flow of electrons. They're
The voltage differential across a component or conductor due to current flow through the resistance or impedance of the component or conductor.
The highest voltage that may be continuously applied to a conductor in conformance with standards or specifications.
A circuit used for controlling and maintaining a voltage at a constant level.
An extremely high voltage increase on an electrical circuit that lasts only a fraction of a second, but can damage sensitive electronic equipment like telephone systems or can cause it to act "funny." If your phone system starts acting "
VSWR. The ratio of the maximum effective voltage to the minimum effective voltage measured along the length of mis-matched radio frequency transmission line.
VTO. The ratio of voltage to reflected voltage in a radio frequency device.
A device for measuring the difference of potential in
A volume is a partition or collection of partitions that have been formatted for use by a computer system. A Windows NT volume can be assigned a drive letter and used to organize directories and files. In NetWare a volume is a physical amount of hard disk storage space. Its
Under ISO 9660, a single CD-Rom disc.
A name you can assign to a floppy or hard disk in MS-DOS. The name can be up to 11
A number assigned to a disk by MS-DOS. The FORMAT command creates the serial number on a disk.
VU. The unit of measurement for electrical speech power in communications work. VUs are measured in decibels above 1 milliwatt. The measuring device is called a VU meter.
Abbreviation for VOLT-OHM-MILLIAMETER, probably the most common form of electronic test equipment. It measures voltage, resistance and current, and may have either a digital or analog meter readout. Some VOMs have other test functions such as audible continuity signals and special tests for semiconductors.
Voice over Multiservice Broadband Network. VoMBN is a means of supporting voice services (e.g., signaling services, and custom calling and Centrex services, as well as voice trunking) over DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) without the involvement of a Class 5 Central Office (CO) switch. VoMBN involves various signaling and processing servers and gateway devices at the network edge in support of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or VoATM (Voice over ATM) packet voice traffic presented to the network edge over a DSL local loop. VoMBN appeals to newer carriers that have built backbone networks based on either ATM or IP. Incumbent voice carriers generally prefer the approach of BLES (Broadband Loop Emulation Service), which accomplished much the same thing through an interface with a Class 5 switch based on traditional circuit-switching technology. See also BLES.
A plane used to simulate zero-G for astronaut flight training. Trainers often get motion sickness inside. Portuguese wine bottled in 1811 is called "comet wine." Its
Voice On the Net (Internet), involving packetized voice. A recent development, initiating a VON call typically requires a multimedia PC or Mac computer with special software which matches that on the receiving device. More recently, Internet servers have been equipped with such software, although appropriate client (workstation) software must be installed to take advantage of this approach. More recently still, VON has been demonstrated from workstation to telephone, telephone to workstation, and telephone to telephone. Additionally, new compression techniques and new DSPs have dramatically improved the quality of VON transmission, mitigating the impacts of packet delay. See Internet Telephony for a detailed explanation. See also VON Coalition and Packetized Voice.
The "Voice on the Net" (VON) Coalition is an Internet organization devoted to "
VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range) collocated and/or combined with TACAN (Tactical Air Navigation Equipment).
Also known as Mass ACK; in Usenet, the posting of the e-mail address of each person that voted for or against a newsgroup proposal.
A teleconferencing term. Also known as Polling. In a large, event-style teleconference, the
A group of mobile base phone receivers operating on the same frequency as a control unit to pick the best signal from among them.
VMS OSI Transport Services. A Digital Equipment Corp. software product that modifies Digital's DECnet transport layer to conform to the International Standards Organization (ISO) Transport Protocol Class Four (TP4).
Latin for "Voice." Some people put "Vox" on their business cards to distinguish their voice telephone number from their fax telephone number. It's a trifle pretentious.
Voice Operated eXchange. Your voice starts it. When you stop speaking, it stops. Tape
Voice Markup Language. See Voice Browser.
Voice over Wireless LAN (Local Area Network).
VOlume piXEL. The 3D equivalent of a pixel, or picture element. a voxel is the smallest
An early key system manufacturer, which made a combination 1A2 handsfree intercom telephone system. It was wood grained, inlaid into black plastic. An impressive phone system. Sadly, no more.
Virtual Path. A SONET term for an end-to-end route between 2 points. Many Virtual Paths may share a common physical path. Each Virtual Path consists of Virtual Tributaries which, in turn, consist of Virtual Channels. In the ITU-T SDH terminology, a Virtual Path is known as a Virtual Container.
An ATM term. Virtual Path is a unidirectional logical association or bundle of VCs, which are communications channels that provide for the sequential unidirectional transport of ATM
Velocity of Propagation. See Velocity of Propagation.
Voice Port Adaptor.
Voice Port Adaptor Rack.
An ATM term. Virtual Path Connection: A concatenation of VPLs (Virtual Path Links) between Virtual Path Terminators (VPTs). VPCs are unidirectional.
Virtual Private Data Network. A private data communications network built on public switching and transport facilities rather than dedicated leased facilities such as T1s.
Virtual Private Data Services. MCI's equivalent of Vnet for data.
Virtual Private Data Service1.1. VPDS 1.1 provides Switched T1 and Switched T3 over a platform of Digital switch Corporation's ECS1 (DXC 3/1) and ECS3 (DXC 3/3) Cross-Connects, respectively. This is a switched data service and is intended for customers who do not want to pay a fixed price for private line services such as TDS1.5 and TDS45. VPDS 1.1 requires a customer to have dedicated access and egress, which is priced at a fixed rate. The network portion is priced on a usage basis and is the "switched" portion of the end-to-end circuit.
Virtual Path Identifier. An ATM term. Virtual Path Identifier is an eight- bit field in the ATM cell header which indicates the Virtual Path (VP) over which the cell should be routed. See VPI and VCI.
Voice Profile for Internet Messaging, a proposed Internet messaging protocol to allow disparate voice messaging systems to automatically exchange voice mail over the Internet. VPIM also will allow a voice messaging system to communicate with other such systems outside the organization. VPIM works like this: You record a message and enter the target telephone number of the intended recipient. Your voice processing system does a directory look-up to a public electronic directory, using LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) to find the e-mail address assigned for voice messages for that individual. Your system converts the voice message to a MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) attachment, and routes the message through the Internet using SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). The message is delivered to the voice messaging system supporting the target telephone number, where it is converted back into a voice message and stored in the recipient's voice mail box. The recipient can respond in the same fashion. Now let's take it a step further. As the messages are converted to MIME attachments, and as it uses SMTP over the Internet, VPIM has the potential to support compound mail consisting perhaps of voice mail, audio mail, e-mail, and video mail. See also LDAP, MIME, SMTP, VPIM Work Group and www.ema.org/vpimdir/index.htm
The goals of the Voice Profile for Internet Mail Work Group include establishing an internationally accepted standard profile of ESMTP/MIME to allow the interexchange of voice and fax messages between voice messaging systems; ensuring that this profile also allows interexchange with non-voice messaging MIME compatible email systems, establishing a directory service to support lookup of the routable address, and establishing a defined mapping specification with other voice messaging. The Group hosted a concept demo at EMA'96, a product demonstration at EMA'97, an info
An ATM term. Virtual Path Link is a means of unidirectional transport of ATM cells between the point where a VPI value is assigned and the point where that value is translated or removed.
Virtual Private Network. There are several definitions for VPN, and we'll go through them in some detail. But first, we need to explain the overall concept. A VPN is not a private network, but is virtually so, which means it's almost so. That is to say that it exhibits at least some of the characteristics of a private network, even though it uses the resources of a public switched network. True private networks
The first VPN was developed for voice networking, but subsequently was developed for use in data networking, as well. Also known in AT&T terminology as a Software-Defined Network (SDN), these original VPNs remain in wide use on both a domestic and an international basis. Currently, they largely are used in support of voice, as Frame Relay and other packet network technologies have proved to be more effective in support of data applications. They are a public service offered by IXCs (IntereXchange Carriers) and making use of the circuit-switched PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). Originally known as Switched 56, the current usage of the term "VPN" distinguishes data services offered by AT&T, MCI (now Worldcom) and Sprint from Switched 56/64 Kbps services
The second definition of VPN is a fairly generic one, referring to a packet data network service offering with some of the characteristics of a private network. Any packet data network can be used as the foundation for such a VPN, including X.25, TCP/IP, Frame Relay, and ATM networks. Each of these foundation networks is very different in terms of specifics, but they all are highly shared in terms of their basic nature. In order to provide services that emulate, or at least approximate, a private network over a highly shared network core, it is necessary to provide some additional features and mechanisms. One such feature is priority access to bandwidth, which can be accomplished through a variety of mechanisms which variously are intrinsic to the fundamental packet protocol (e.g., ATM) or through supplemental protocols (e.g., MPLS, or MultiProtocol Label Switching, which often is used in Frame Relay and TCP/IP networks). Security is a critical feature, which variously can be imposed through mechanisms such as a Closed User Group (e.g., Frame Relay) or tunneling (e.g., TCP/IP).
In contemporary usage, VPN most commonly refers to an IP (Internet Protocol) VPN running over the public Internet. While the ubiquitous nature of the Internet is a huge advantage for data networking, the Internet is inherently both
The applications scenarios for IP VPNs include remote access, intranets, and extranets. Remote access VPNs are highly effective in support of telecommuters, mobile workers, and virtual employees.
Very Plain Old Telephone Service. No automated switching.
Virtual Private Trunking. VPT - (as it pertains to VPN) - appears as a Frame Relay or ATM service to the enterprise, but uses VPN technology to deliver high-availability services, while enabling service providers to fully optimize trunk bandwidth. VPT
Virtual Physical Unit.
Voice Processing Unit.
Variable Quantizing Level. Speech-encoding technique that quantizes and encodes an analog voice conversation for transmission, nominally at 32 Kbps.
Voice Recognition. See Voice Recognition
Virtual Reality. See Virtual Reality.
Video RAM. Memory used to buffer an image and transfer it onto the display. It is a form of DRAM specially suited for video. VRAM
Vertical Redundancy Check. Synonymous with Parity Checking.
Virtual Ring Down.
A Novell NetWare program somewhat analogous to MS-DOS's CHKDSK program or Windows95's Scandisk. VREPAIR fixes FAT (File Allocation Table ) and DIR (Directory) Tables. It's a most useful program. Highly recommended.
Virtual Router IDentifier. An eight-bit identifier in the header of a VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) packet, the VRID identifies the virtual router for which the packet is reporting the status. See also VRRP.
Virtual Reality Modeling Language. A language for writing 3D HTML applications. VRML, according to PC Magazine, is an open standard for 3-D imaging on the World-Wide Web that paves the way for virtual reality on the Internet. The way VRML code describes a 3-D scene is analogous to four points describing a square, or a center point and radius describing a sphere. VRML
Virtual Route Pacing Response in SNA.
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol. Specified in the IETF RFC 2338, VRRP is an election (i.e., optional) protocol that allows several first-hop virtual routers on a
See Voice Board and Voice Response Unit.
Virtual Scheduling. As an ATM term, it is a method to determine the conformance of an arriving cell. The virtual scheduling algorithm updates a Theoretical Arrival Time (TAT), which is the "nominal" arrival time of the cell
Virtual Source. Refer to VS/VD.
See Virtual Storage.
Voice Store and Forward. Voice is digitally encoded, sent to large storage devices and later forwarded to the recipient. See Voice Mail.
Virtual Source/Virtual Destination. An ATM term, a VS/VD is an ABR connection may be divided into two or more separately controlled ABR segments. Each ABR control segment, except the first, is sourced by a virtual source. A virtual source implements the behavior of an ABR source endpoint. Backwards RM-cells received by a virtual source are removed from the connection. Each ABR control segment, except the last, is
Very Small Aperature Check.
Very Small Aperture Terminal. A relatively small satellite antenna, typically 1.5 to 3.0
Consider the VSAT dishes you see on the roofs of gas stations. Large numbers of gas stations share access to a single satellite which, in turn, provides connection to a centralized data processing center. At those gas stations are intelligent gas pumps equipped with credit card readers,
Vestigial Sideband. A form of Amplitude Modulation (AM) that compresses required bandwidth and is commonly used for video. VSB is modulation technique used to send data over a coaxial cable network. NTSC video standardizes a VSB technique. Another (16-level, digital) VSB technique has been
See Vertical Service Code.
A British Term. Voice Services Equipment, a generic term for voice response unit, interactive voice response, voice processing unit and so on.
Virtual Storage Extended.
Vector Sum Exited Linear Prediction. A speech coding technique used in U.S. and proposed Japanese DMR standards. Second generation European DMR will probably use some version of VSELP.
See Vector Sum Excited Predictive Coding.
Virtual Switch Interface.
A VSI master process implementing the master side of the VSI protocol in a VSI controller. Sometimes the whole VSI controller might be referred to as a VSI Master but this is not
Video Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer. A VSLAM is the device at the central office which enables VDSL ” Video DSL ” Video Digital Subscriber Line Service.
Virtual SS7 Network
Very Short Reach. A physical-layer specification for a parallel fiber
At the near end of the connection, the input data stream is inverse multiplexed, striped over multiple fibers in the VSR transmission system, and recombined at the far end of the connection. VSR is highly
Voice Server System.
Voltage Standing Wave Ratio. The ratio of the maximum effective voltage to the minimum effective voltage measured along the length of mis-matched radio frequency transmission line. Explanation: When impedance
Virtual Tributary. A SONET structure designed for transport and switching of subrate DS-3 payloads. VT1.5 equals 1.544 Mbps (T-1); VT2 equals 2.048 Mbps (E-1); VT3 equals 3.456 Mbps T-1c); and VT6 (T-2) equals 6.912 Mbps. See also SONET and Virtual Tributary.
Virtual Tributary Group. A nine-row, 12-column structure (108 bytes) that carries one or more VTs of the same size. Seven VT groups can fit into one SRS-1 playload.
Virtual Tributary Pointer. Locates the VT Synchronous Payload Envelope (VT SPE) for a floating mode Virtual Tributary (where the timing is not locked in frequency nor phase to the timing of the STS-1, but is allowed to float). See also SONET and Virtual Tributary.
VT Synchronous Payload Envelope.
Video Terminal 100. An incredibly capable CRT (Cathode Ray Terminal) developed by DEC in the early 1980s. The popularity of the VT 100 lead to its becoming an ad hoc standard, which still forms the basis for the
Virtual Tributary 1.5. A SONET term. A subrate channel with the payload equivalent of a T-1 frame at 1.544 Mbps. With SONET overhead, the total signaling rate is 1.728 Mbps. See also SONET, T-1, and Virtual Tributary.
Virtual Tributary 2. A SONET term. A subrate channel with the payload equivalent of an E-1 frame at 2.048 Mbps. With SONET overhead, the total signaling rate is 2.304 Mbps. See also E-1, SONET, and Virtual Tributary.
Virtual Tributary 3. A SONET term. A subrate channel with the payload equivalent of a T-1c frame at 3.152 Mbps. With SONET overhead, the total signaling rate is 3.456 Mbps. See also SONET, T-1c, and Virtual Tributary.
Virtual Tributary 6. A SONET term. A subrate channel of 6.912 Mbps with the pay- load equivalent of a T-2 at 6.312. With SONET overhead, the total signaling rate is 6.912 Mbps. See also SONET, T-2, and Virtual Tributary.
Virtual Trunk Agent.
Vermont Telecommunications Applications Center. See www.vtac.org
Virtual Telecommunications Access Method. A program component in an IBM computer which handles some of the communications processing tasks for an application program. In an IBM 370 or compatible, VTAM is a method to give users at remote terminals access to applications in the main computer. VTAM resides in the host. It performs addressing and path control functions in an SNA network that allows a terminal or an application to communicate with and transfer data to another application along some sort of transmission medium. VTAM also provides resource sharing, a technique for
Video TeleConference, a term invented by the U.S. Air Force.
Virtual Tributary Group
Vendor Technical Management.
Vendor Type Number.
Virtual Telecommunications Network Services.
Voltage Tuned Oscillator.
Voice Traffic (or Transport) over ATM.
Virtual Tributary Overhead.
Virtual Terminal Protocol. An International Standards Organization (ISO) standard for virtual terminal service.
Video To The Home. The general ability to provide interactive multimedia services to people in their
VU is the unit of measurement for electrical speech power in communications work. VUs are measured in decibels above 1 milliwatt. The measuring device is called a VU meter, which is an abbreviation of volume-unit meter, a type of meter used to indicate average audio amplitude.
First came the CLI (Command-Line Interface). Then came the GUI (Graphical User Interface). Get ready for the VUI: the Video User Interface. Actually, you don't need to get ready for it any time soon, but you might start wondering how to use it.
The taxing hand positions required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control Key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key. See also Three Finger Salute.
See Intrusion Detection.
A network vulnerability tester which sends data to various IP ports on a host to determine which ones are
I love this term. It sounds like some
VME Extension for Instrumentation. An extension of the standard VME bus design, VXI is intended for high-performance instrumentation applications such as test systems, laboratory automation systems, and industrial control systems. See also VME.
VXML is software designed to let you talk to the web sites, to have them answer you, i.e. give you the information you want ” from stock prices, to restaurant menus, to driving instructions, to sending and hearing emails. Voice Extensible Markup Language (Voice XML) is a Web-based markup language much like HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and XML, but designed for voice-based, rather than typing, graphical or textual interaction. Like HTML, VXML relies on HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) for TCP/IP transport. VXML supports telephone access to Web services, and supports Web browsing and Web-site interaction through voice and audio (e.g., touchtone and speech recognition), rather than traditional point-and-click mouse and keyboard commands. Once fully standardized and widely implemented, VXML will support four general applications categories, according to the VoiceXML Forum. Those are information retrieval, electronic commerce, telephony services (e.g., voice-activated dialing and conference calling, and one number, find-me services) and unified communications (i.e., unified messaging). The VoiceXML Forum develops the educational and marketing aspects of the VXML standard under development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). At the time of this writing, VXML is in version 1.0, a specification from the VoiceXML Forum, which is being standardized by the W3C. Version 2.0, which is under development by the W3C, will feature the Speech Recognition Grammar Format (SRGF), an XML language for writing voice recognition gram- mer, and Synthesis Markup Language (SSML), an XML language for text-to-speech markup. See also HTML, HTTP, VoiceXML Forum, W3C, and XML.
VxWorks was developed by Wind
A test used by Underwriters Laboratories to classify wires and cables by their resistance to burning. (Formerly designated as FR-1.)
Virtual Wavelength Path. A VWP is a group of one or more channels between source and destination nodes. The term virtual indicates that the signal path can actually travel on different physical
Vyvx is a division of Williams Communications and provides broadcast quality video transmission and advertising services to both television and internet broadcasters. When stations, networks, and internet companies want to get live video programming to their main broadcast facility in real-time, they either use their own satellite equipment or lease Vyvx lines. It has become common slang for any non-