• 802.11 – A family of IEEE standards for wireless local area networks (WLANs). Wi-Fi Alliance is an industry advocate group that promotes and certifies devices based on the 802.11 specification.
  • 802.16 – A family of IEEE broadband wireless communications standards for metropolitan area networks (MANs). WiMAX is an industry advocate group that promotes and certifies devices based on the 802.16 specification.
  • Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) – A specialized phone system originally designed simply to route an office's incoming calls to all available personnel so that calls are evenly distributed.
  • Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) – A network technology based on the transfer of data in cells or packets of a fixed size that is used for the switched, connection-oriented transmission of voice, data, audio, and video over the same network.
  • Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) – One of the most highly regarded vendor-neutral security certifications.
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Systems that include software and computer applications that collect and organize customer information. Like CTI except more robust.
  • Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) – Systems that enable a computer to act as a call center, accepting incoming calls and routing them to the appropriate device or person.
  • Dual-Tone-Multi-Frequency (DTMF) – The system used by touch-tone telephones. DTMF assigns a specific frequency (consisting of two separate tones) to each key so that it can easily be identified by a microprocessor.
  • Firewall – A system implemented from hardware, software, or a combination of both to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. It examines each message entering or leaving the Internet and blocks those that do not meet specified security criteria.
  • Internet Protocol (IP) – A connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol. It provides packet routing, fragmentation and re-assembly through the data link layer.
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – A system to automatically manage incoming calls, IVR can link phone callers (voice and/or touchtone) with a computer database. It can accept a question, access the company's database and provide a caller with the information they are seeking. It can also take information from the caller, convert it to data and input that data to the database.
  • Intrusion Detection System (IDS) – A software/hardware tool used to detect unauthorized access to a computer system or network.
  • Local Area Network (LAN) – A system that links together electronic office equipment, such as computers and word processors, and forms a network within an office or building.
  • Private Branch Exchanges (PBX) – A private telephone network used within an enterprise. Users of a PBX share outside lines to make telephone calls external to the PBX.
  • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) – An IP telephony signaling protocol that is primarily used for voice over IP (VoIP) calls, but can also be used for any media type, such as video.
  • Speaker Authentication – The process of verifying a person's identity based on the characteristics or informational content of that person's voice.
  • Speech Recognition – The ability of a machine or program to recognize and execute spoken commands. Also known as voice recognition.
  • Speaker Verification – The process of verifying a person's identity based on a person's voice characteristics.
  • Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) – A technology that transmits multiple signals simultaneously over a single transmission path by separating each signal into many segments and reassembling them, based on timing, at the receiving end of the transmission.
  • Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) – A protocol for communication between computers, used as a standard for transmitting data over networks and as the basis for standard Internet protocols.
  • Virtual Private Network (VPN) – Enables IP traffic to travel securely over a public TCP/IP network by encrypting all traffic from one network to another. A VPN uses “tunneling” to encrypt all information at the IP level.
  • Voice Biometrics – The science and technology of measuring and analyzing the characteristics of the human voice. Voice biometrics systems verify that the authorized user is the actual person entering a password or PIN.
  • Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) – The technology used to transmit voice conversations over a data network using the Internet Protocol.
  • Workforce Management (WFM) – Software application that supplies supervisor with system workload and predictive scheduling information.
  • Wide Area Network (WAN) – A computer network that spans a wider area than does a local area network.
  • Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) – Term referring to an over-the-air connection with a wireless client and a base station or between two wireless clients Term used for wireless local area networks (WLAN) using specifications conforming to IEEE 802.11. Trademark for this term is controlled by the Wi-Fi Alliance.