Wanted: Your confusing technical jargon

seamus

I need some lists of words and jargon that you hear in relation to Internet connections. The more technical stuff, such as DHCP, contention ratios, etc etc.

It's for the whole FAQ/Glossary section of the IOFFL website.

Also, not being in business myself, I'm not 100% on what's available primarily to business customers and not resdiential customers. VHDSL? B-ISDN? Lists of them too cheers.....

Dusty/Sceptre feel free to move........

ednwireland

starting out jargon buster from initiative supplement

if this is the quality of esat bt dsl staff ......................
i'm assuming it was sponsored by ESAT BT asthere is a price comparison there which doesn't mention eircom DSL offering
will post if i can format

133MHz Processor: MHz is the abbreviation for megahertz. One
MHz represents one million cycles per second. The speed of a computer's microprocessors, called the clock speed, is measured in MHz.
For example, a microprocessor that runs at 133MHz executes 133
million cycles per second. It determines how many instructions
per second the microprocessor can execute. To a large degree, thiscontrols how powerful the computer is.

16MB RAM: MB is an abbreviation for megabyte. A megabyte
of memory is capable of storing approximately 1.4 million char-
acters, or about 3,000 pages of information. RAM (random
access memory) is the live memory used to run your software. The
more megabytes of RAM your computer has the faster and eas-
ier it is to run.

10Base-T: This is a standard technology used over computer net-
works. A PC using a 10base-T network interface card will be able
to communicate over a network with other PCs and servers.

MDR

I would check out the explaination of the abbrevations sections of the ODTR's 'Future Delivery Of Broadband in Ireland' consulation paper and its attached 'Ovum' report, it should keep you going for a long time.

ODTR

SkepticOne

See? They are good for something. Only joking. Where's me flat rate?

Dustaz

nice one seamus. Ill copy this to nets/comms (rather than move) for MJH (Maximum Jargon Harvest)

Moriarty

IDSL - Integrated DSL.

IDSL is very similar to ISDN. The differences between IDSL and ISDN are:
- ISDN passes through the phone company's central office voice network; IDSL bypasses it by plugging into a special router at the phone company end
- ISDN requires call setup; IDSL is a dedicated service
- ISDN may involve per-call fees; IDSL may be billed at a flat rate with no usage charges

G.Lite (aka DSL Lite, splitterless ADSL, Universal ADSL)

This is essentially a slower ADSL that doesn't require splitting of the line at the user end but manages to split it for the user remotely at the telephone company. This saves the cost of what the phone companies call "the truck roll." G.Lite, officially ITU-T standard G-992.2, provides a data rate from 1.544 Mbps to 6 Mpbs downstream and from 128 Kbps to 384 Kbps upstream. G.Lite is expected to become the most widely installed form of DSL.

RADSL - Rate Adaptive DSL.

This is an ADSL technology from Westell in which software is able to determine the rate at which signals can be transmitted on a given customer phone line and adjust the delivery rate accordingly. Westell's FlexCap2 system uses RADSL to deliver from 640 Kbps to 2.2 Mbps downstream and from 272 Kbps to 1.088 Mbps upstream over an existing line.

SDSL - Symmetric DSL

This is similar to HDSL with a single twisted-pair line, carrying 2.048 Mbps in each direction on a duplex line. It's symmetric because the data rate is the same in both directions

VDSL - Very high data rate DSL

This is a developing technology that promises much higher data rates over relatively short distances (between 51 and 55 Mbps over lines up to 1,000 feet or 300 meters in length). It's envisioned that VDSL may emerge somewhat after ADSL is widely deployed and co-exist with it. The transmission technology (CAP, DMT, or other) and its effectiveness in some environments is not yet determined. A number of standards organizations are working on it. VDSL's main use will be in ATM networks and as a fibre-to-the-neighbourhood distribution system. 4,500 feet at 12.96 Mbps. 3,000 feet at 25.82 Mbps. 1,000 feet at 51.84 Mbps.

Gavin

what happened to the io wikki ?

Gav

Moriarty

Contention

Contention is a way of reducing the cost of providing ADSL services for ISPs. What this means is that the connection to your ISP from your phone exchange is shared between you and a fixed number of other people. Most consumer ADSL services are contended at 50:1. (Eircom has contention of 24:1, Esat has contention of 20:1.) This means that in your local exchange you are sharing the connection to your ISP with 50 other people. While this sounds terrible it's really not that bad. It is very unlikely that you and the other 49 people that you are contended with will all be online at the same time, and then even if you are it's likely that most people will be simply downloading email and browsing the web which takes up relatively little bandwidth. Only if all 50 users were using all of their available bandwidth would you notice a difference.

DHCP - Dynamic Host Control Protocol

This is software run on servers, which allocate ips from a pre-configured ip range to clients upon request for an address.

Rew

Maybe a bit more for DHCP (or maybe not??)

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DHCP is used for automating the configuration of computers that use TCP/IP. DHCP can be used to automatically assign IP addresses, to deliver configuration details such as the subnet mask and default router, and to provide other configuration information such as the addresses for printer, time, log, WINS and news servers. Basicly it allows you to join a network without having to know the details.