The Official Dictionary of
`Telecommunications & the Internet
`
`• IP Telephony• LANs & lntranets • Call Centers & Computer Telephony
`• Fiber Optics, SONET and DWDM • Satellites
`• Voice, Data, Image & Video Networking• Wired
`and Wireless Telecom• VoIP• T-1 , T-3 , T-4, E-1,
`E-3 • ISDN & ADSL • Cable Modems • Cellular,
`PCS & GSM • Windows 95, 98, NT, NetWare,
`Apple, Sun & Unix Networking• Ecommerce
`
`15th
`
`Updated
`
`Expanded
`Edition
`
`by Harry Newton
`
`Page 1 of 12
`
`GOOGLE EXHIBIT 1020
`
`

`

`NEWTON's TELECOM DICTIONARY
`
`Copyright © 1999 Harry Newton
`email: Harry@HarryNewton.com
`personal web site: www.HarryNewton.com
`
`All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright conventions, including the right
`to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
`
`Published in the United States by
`Miller Freeman, Inc.
`Tenth floor
`12 West 21 Street
`New York, NY 10010
`212-691-8215 Fax 212-691-1191
`1-800-999-0345 and 1-800-LI BRA RY
`
`ISBN Number 1-57820-031-8
`
`August, 1999
`
`For individual orders, and for information on special discounts for quantity orders, please contact:
`Telecom Books
`6600 Silacci Way
`Gilroy, CA 95020
`Tel:800-LIBRARY or 408-848-3854
`Fax:408-848-5784
`Emai I :telecom@rushorder.com
`
`Distributed to the book trade in the U.S. and Canada by
`Publishers Group West
`1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710
`
`.Fifteenth Edition, Expanded and Updated
`Matt Kelsey, Publisher
`Christine Kern, Manager
`
`Manufactured in the United States of America
`
`Page 2 of 12
`
`

`

`NEWTON'S
`TELECOM
`DICTIONARY
`
`The Official Dictionary of .
`Telecommunications & the Internet
`
`15th Updated, Expanded and Much
`Improved Edition
`
`Page 3 of 12
`
`

`

`HELP MAKE THIS DICTIONARY
`EVEN BETTER
`
`I'm adding 100 new words a week. I'm updating, expanding and fixing another 100. Still, I can't
`keep up.
`
`If I'm missing a definition, or if a definition is unclear or (God forbid) wrong, please email me.
`
`I'm also looking for corporate glossaries -- not ones that just have your company's products, but ones
`with generic definitions of the specialized areas your company plays in. I love emailed glossaries.
`
`I'll reward you with a big "Thank you" and a free copy of the next edition.
`
`Apology: I'm still apologizing for cutting the size of the type in the dictionary. For 10 editions, I
`believed in "readability," i.e. HUGE TYPE. But my dictionary blossomed to 1,400 pages, five and a
`half lbs and cost $5.50 to ship domestically and $35+ internationally. We spent days trying differ(cid:173)
`ent type faces, different type sizes, different leading (space between lines) and different spacing
`between letters. This is the most readable we could find and keep the weight down. It's not perfect.
`I'm sorry. If you want to suggest a different layout, please do. I'm open to anything. My eyesight is
`just as bad (if not worse) than yours.
`
`Thank you.
`
`Harry@HarryNe · n.com
`Harry Newton
`205 West 19 Street
`New York, NY 10011
`212-206-7140
`Fax 209-797-9540
`
`www. Harry Newton. com
`
`Page 4 of 12
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`

`

`WHERE THE TELECOM EXPLOSION
`IS COMING FROM
`
`by Harry Newton
`
`I wrote this book for those of us desperately trying to keep up. No other industry is exploding as fast as
`telecommunications, networking and the Internet. The explosion is coming from:
`
`1. The Demand. Traffic on the Internet is doubling every 100 days. There'll be one billion people on line
`by 2005. Every business will have a Web site selling and servicing their wares. My phone company tells me
`their average "phone" call, when it was a voice call, was three minutes. Now it's an hour. I put a DSL - Digital
`subscriber Line -
`into my house. It's 30 times as fast as my previous dial-up. Downloads that used to take
`me hours now take minutes. My DSL line brings me faxes, voice mail, email and alerts me to incoming phone
`calls. I do my shopping on my DSL line. I watch my stocks on the Internet. I do my research on them via the
`Internet. I read magazines and newspapers on the Internet. I talk to my children on the Internet. My wife and
`I arrange our social life via the Internet. My DSLs lightning speed has changed my life. It will change yours.
`Network speed is a narcotic. Stand on any New York street with two sandwich boards, "Free Money" and
`"High Speed Internet Access." Guess which one would get mobbed? The High Speed Internet Access.
`Everyone wants high-speed Internet Access. Demand for fast, rel iable communications has barely been
`scratched anywhere in the world.
`
`2. The Increasing Digitization. This is relatively old, but continuing in an escalated fashion. We
`started digitizing phon·e conversations many years ago for two basic reasons: First, it improved their quality.
`On long distance calls, calls were regenerated and noise picked up along the way was no longer amplified.
`Digitization made cross country calls sound as clear as cross office. Second, it was simply cheaper. Digital
`componentry is cheaper, and getting cheaper. Digitization techniques -
`such as TOM, DWDM, packet
`switching, etc. -
`are simply more efficient, and therefore more cost-effective.
`
`3. The Hardware. The excitement centers on the dramatically improving price-performance of fiber
`optics (switching and transmission), digital signal processors and the high-speed routers of the Internet, now
`switching terabits of information each second. Fiber is amazing. No one knows how much capacity you can
`pump down one single fiber strand. In labs, we've sent 1,000,000,000,000 bits per second down a fiber
`strand a little thicker than one strand of your hair. Totally amazing speed. That trillion bits per second is
`enough to carry the entire world's Internet. Telecom's three building blocks -
`fiber, DSPs and routers - are
`improving far faster in cost performance than computing's microprocessors and memory -
`though com(cid:173)
`puting improvements get national publicity. Telecom's annual cost-performance improvement blows away
`Moore's Law (defined under M).
`
`4. New Standards. Ten years ago, the telecom industry was entirely closed. Every manufacturer had its
`own set of standards, proprietary to itself. You couldn't connect a Siemens phone to an Ericsson switch, or a
`Lucent phone to Nortel PBX. Telecom standards existed only at the very lowest levels -
`basic analog phone
`lines. A persevering bunch of pioneers, coming chiefly from the computer industry, has pushed openings in
`the telecom industry, promulgating real, open standards that we can all use to bulld, Lego-style, new telecom
`products. These pioneers work in a hodge-podge of volunteef and semi-government bodies -
`from the ATM
`Forum to the ECTF, from GO-MVIP to the ITU-T, from ANSI to the Internet Engineering Task Force and to pri(cid:173)
`vate companies, from Microsoft to Intel, from Cisco to Juniper Networks. As a result, there's been an explo(cid:173)
`sion of new telecom standards, defining everything from telecom operating systems, to buses that carry voice
`inside and outside PCs, to new, cheap ways of encoding voice digitally, to new high-speed lines, to new tele(cid:173)
`com "building block" software (called applications generators) and, of course, to IP Telephony- phone calls
`
`Page 5 of 12
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`

`

`over the Internet or Internet-like networks. Open standards lead to low prices, low barriers to entry and fast cre(cid:173)
`ation of new products. All this leads to explosive growth. We haven't seen nothing yet.
`
`5. New Government Awareness That Competition Is Better Than Monopoly. The tele(cid:173)
`com industry has historically been closed -
`closed in architecture, closed to new suppliers, closed to new
`entrants. Telecom users have been mauled by high monopoly prices, typically those set by government phone
`companies. No longer. The United States de-regulated in the late 196Os and 197Os. Canada followed quick(cid:173)
`ly. Israel and Australia deregulated in 1997. Europe de-regulated in January, 1998. Governments everywhere
`are waking to two powerful realizations: First, globalization is the most powerful economic force in the world
`today. Ignore it at your peril. Second, telecom is economic infrastructure. Companies and business go where
`globalization is friendliest and infrastructure is strongest. You can't make modern development-friendly infra(cid:173)
`structure and have a modern society when you have one bloated, glacial, government-run phone company
`charging ten times what phone companies one mile across the border charge. And you can't limit your entire
`country's telecommunications purchases to two or three gigantic, favored, cumbersome suppliers (as Europe,
`Japan and Australia had historically done). By the end of this century, European and Japanese telecom should
`be as open as and as cheap as North America is today. Then come India and China, also opening up.
`
`6. New Startups. Telecommunications is the hottest place for venture capital. No industry in the world
`-
`neither software nor petroleum -
`can match the incredible profitability of the zero-marginal-cost tele(cid:173)
`phone carrier. If I call from New York to California, my call costs my supplier -AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Qwest
`or whoever -
`basically nothing. All my carrier's costs are fixed. Other than billing me for my call, my carri(cid:173)
`er incurs no marginal cost for carrying my 3,000 mile call. An incredible business. Even the oil business
`incurs variable costs -
`for dragging its stuff out of the ground and schlepping it to markets across the world.
`
`Nobody to this day knows how many conversations or how much information we can put down a single
`strand of fiber. Read the incredible developments in my definition of DWDM - Dense Wave Division
`Multiplexing. Add more photonics and electronics at the end. Put more calls down the fiber. More electron(cid:173)
`ics. Photonic switching. More calls. More opportunities. No one knows what voice and video marvels the
`Internet can deliver. Smart engineers are leaving big, sluggish telecom manufacturers in droves and start(cid:173)
`ing new companies. What's new is they're now leaving "hot" software companies like Microsoft to get into
`telecom. There already are hundreds of "new telecom" millionaires already. Soon, there will be thousands.
`
`7. Dramatically Falling Prices. All the above brings dramatically lower prices. Germany's long dis(cid:173)
`tance prices dropped 91 % in 1998. Israel used to have the highest international calling prices of any devel(cid:173)
`oped country. Then the government allowed in a handful of new carriers. The criterion for getting a perfT]it
`was not financial, but simply how far you were prepared to drop your long distance and international prices.
`The carriers proposing the lowest possible prices won. International rates from Israel to the U.S. promptly
`dropped 94%.
`
`This new telecom environment is driving radically new paradigms into an erstwhile staid industry. Among
`them .. read on ..
`
`ii
`
`Page 6 of 12
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`

`

`WHERE THE EXPLOSION IS TAKING US
`
`• Because of fiber, long distance and international calling are becoming incredibly cheap. As
`the world is increasingly fibered up, costs will continue to plummet. Communications will be postalized -
`one low price wherever you call. I see the day coming when we'll all pay $25 a month and call anywhere in
`the world and speak as long as we want, for as often as we want. Flat rate calling everywhere. I see the day
`when everyone will be connected at high speed to the Internet all the time on whatever device we choose -
`our PC, our phone (wired or wireless), our PDA, our TV set. On The Net All The Time. Instant email. Instant
`news. Soon everyone will have high-speed channels to their houses and their offices. Over the air TV brought
`us 5 channels. CATV (cable TV) brought us 50. Satellite TV brought us 500. Internet TV will bring us 50,000.
`People will live and work where they choose.
`
`• Wireless will get more interesting. As I write this, there are more cell phone users each
`day than there are Internet users - a statistic I saw that blew me away. Wireless has exploded because
`of digitization and digital techniques that enabled providers to cram many many times the number of users
`into the same sliver of bandwidth. Virtually all of today's wireless "conversations" are voice - people speak(cid:173)
`ing to each other. But tomorrow, most wireless "conversations" will be data, as people send each other mes(cid:173)
`sages, receive their stock quotes, and even surf the Internet. Essentially a wireless phone is a far better busi(cid:173)
`ness tool than a wired phone. You can get in touch with your customers. They can get in touch with you. A
`functioning accessible wireless phone obsoletes the aggravation of voice mail. Wireless is easier to deploy.
`Load a Coke machine with a cell phone. It can call when it's empty. It can raise prices when the temperature
`rises. Deploying a Coke machine with a cell phone is a lot faster than waiting for a landline to be installed.
`Wireless has a long way to go. But I'm always comforted by the fact that there's far more spectrum waiting to
`be used. than is presently used. The lack of spectrum is a myth.
`
`• Telecom switching hardware will go through the same mainframe-to-client/server PC rev(cid:173)
`olution that the computer industry went through in the past 20 years - with one big differ(cid:173)
`ence: The telecom industry will skip the mini-computer generation. In telecom, we are very close to the "cen~
`tral office inside the PC." As competition and new technology arrives, the time to market new telecom fea(cid:173)
`tures will drop from three years to three weeks. As telephone central offices move to shoe box size, so each
`desk will become its own central office, with individual telecom customization opportunities beyond anyone
`wildest imagination. One day everyone's telephone system will be as personal as their PC. Telephone soft(cid:173)
`ware will be available for downloading from the Internet or buying shrinkwrapped from your local Wal-Mart.
`
`• Voice, fax, imaging and video will migrate to and join data in one common IP network -
`the Internet and the corporate Intranet (the corporate equivalent of the Internet). This will drive
`telecommunications pricing further down, add features and new capabilities (bandwidth on demand to the
`home, follow-me-find-me, etc.), It will shrink space, shrink time and vastly expand (and improve) every
`aspect of human endeavor -
`from remote education to business telecommuting, from remote medical diag(cid:173)
`nosis to high definition TV entertainment, from massive joint gaming adventures to serious understanding of
`our neighbors' failings (my tiny hope for world peace).
`
`• Ecommerce will explode. Who would have imagined the 1992-1995 phenomenon which produced the
`democratization and commercialization of the Internet? Who could have imagined prime time TV showing
`www Web site addresses to the great unwashed American public on prime time TV. How easy mainstream
`America has accepted www addresses. The Internet happening is, I believe, as important to the dissemina(cid:173)
`tion of knowledge as the invention of the Gutenberg Press was in 1453. The Internet and the Web as a buy(cid:173)
`ing mechanism is immature -five years old. Physical shops are 5,000 years old. Even call centers are older
`(and more mature). As ecommerce matures in the next few years, it will become a totally pleasurable experi(cid:173)
`ence (it isn't at present), eclipsing in emotion and excitement anything physical shops have ever delivered.
`
`iii
`
`Page 7 of 12
`
`

`

`personal shoppers. We'll have 30 movies of distant vacation spas we're interested in
`We'll have avatars -
`visiting. We'll have access to all the information about the products and services we're interested in -
`not
`just the smatterings that are on today's Web. It will take time (and bandwidth). But the journey will be unbe(cid:173)
`lievably rewqrding, exciting and bubbling with serious business and personal opportunities.
`
`• This revolution will change the way we work more than any other. The industrial revolution
`brought us into the city. But its primary by-products -
`the automobile and the highway- delivered pollu(cid:173)
`tion, downtown decay, urban crime and other unwanted problems. The low-energy, non-polluting "telecom"
`revolution is different. It gives each of us the opportunity to live where we choose -
`downtown Detroit, in
`the mountains of Colorado, or in Sri Lanka, where Arthur Clarke lives. More of us will telecommute. By the
`end of the year 2000, over 50% of Americans will not work out of conventional offices. They'll work out of
`their homes, their cars, their RVs, their hotels and their temporary offices.
`
`This telecom revolution gives our cousins overseas grand new opportunities. As telecom calling costs
`plummet,. the industrial world will export its service jobs in the next 20 years, just as it exported its manu(cid:173)
`facturing jobs in the past 20. U.S. airlines will answer their calls from U.S. customers in India, Nepal,
`China. Already, Microsoft, HP and Swissair have call centers in India and answer calls from customers in
`North America. They're already calling the Indian city of Hyderabad - Cyberbad.
`
`the most fantastic of all industries - will be
`·I wish I were 30 years younger. The next 20 years in this -
`totally incredible. Adjectives can't describe the excitement I feel.
`
`Writing telecom dictionary updates every day and delivering new versions every six months is exhausting,
`exhilarating and very time-consuming. Claire and Michael, my children, and Susan, my wife, nag me, "Get
`a life!" I apologize to them for seeing so much of Daddy's back as he worked on this dictionary.
`
`HOW TO USE THIS DICTIONARY
`This is a dictionary to work with every day. Companies give it to their new employees to bring them up the tele(cid:173)
`com and Internet learning curve. Salespeople include the definitions in proposals to customers. Novices love it
`because it cuts through the clutter. Users explain telecom things to their boss. Management uses it to understand
`telecom technicalities. Lawyers even use it in court. Sometimes they rely on it. God help the justice system.
`= ASCII 32
`= ASCII 53
`Blank Space
`5
`= ASCII 33
`= ASCII 54
`6
`!
`= ASCII 35
`= ASCII 55
`7
`#
`= ASCII 38
`= ASCII 56
`& (Ampersand)
`8
`= ASCII 45
`= ASCII 57
`-(Hyphen or dash)
`9
`= ASCII 46
`= ASCII 58
`. (Period)
`: (colon)
`= ASCII 47
`; (semi colon)
`= ASCII 59
`/ (Forward slash)
`0 (zero)
`= ASCII 48
`A (capital A)
`= ASCII 65
`1
`= ASCII 49
`Capital letters to ASCII 90
`2
`= ASCII 50
`\ (back slash)
`3
`= ASCII 51
`Lower case letters
`= ASCII 52
`4
`start with a
`
`= ASCII 97
`
`= ASCII 92
`
`Give my dictionary to your new employees, your users, your customers, your prospective customers, to your
`boss. Give it to your kids to let them understand what you do. They'll understand why you, too, have no life.
`
`Most technical dictionaries define terms tersely, often in other technical terms. As a result they leave you more
`confused. This dictionary is different, deliberately so. My definitions tell you what the term is, how it works,
`how you use it, what its benefits are, what its negatives are. I tell you how it fits into the greater scheme of
`things, and I occasionally sound warnings or issue buying checklists.
`
`iv
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`Page 8 of 12
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`

`HOW THIS DICTIONARY IS ORGANIZED
`like@,#,
`My definitions are ·a combination ASCII/ alphabetical order. Definitions containing nnn-letters -
`/ and numbers -
`are in ASCII order. Definitions with real letters are in alphabetical order. I use ASCII
`because it gives order to hyphens, periods, forward slashes, numbers, etc. Here is the order you'll find in this
`dictionary:
`HOW THE DICTIONARY SPELLS
`My dictionary conforms to American spelling. To convert American spelling to British and Canadian spelling
`typical ly requires adding a second "L" in words like signaling and dialing (they're American) and changing
`"Z" in words like analyze to analyse. Center in American is Center. In Britain, Europe, Australia and Canada,
`it's Centre. This dictionary contains more British, Australian and European words than my previous editions
`- a result of several overseas lecture tours·.
`WHAT STYLE THIS DICTIONARY FOLLOWS
`All high-tech industries make up new words by joining words together. They typically start by putting two
`words next to each other. Later, they join them with a hyphen. Then, with age and familiarity, the hyphen tends
`to disappear. An example: Kindergarten. Kinder-garten. and now Kindergarten.
`
`Sometimes it's a matter of personal choice. Some people spell database as one word. Sorue as two, i.e. data
`base. I prefer it as one, since it has acquired its own logic by now. Sometimes it's a matter of how it looks. I
`prefer T-1 (T-one), not T1, simply because T-1 is easier to recognize on paper. I define co-location as co(cid:173)
`location. Websters spells it collocation, with two Ls, one more than mine. I think mine is more logical. And
`Mr. Webster is dead. He can't argue with me.
`
`Plurals give trouble1 The plural of PBX is PBXs, not PBX's. The plural of PC is PCs, not PC's, despite what
`the New York Times says. The Wall Street Journal and all the major computer magazines agree with me. The
`plural possessive is PBXs' and PCs', which looks a little strange, but is correct. In this dictionary, I spell the
`numbers one through nine. Above nine, I write the numbers as arabic numerals, i.e. 10, 11, 12, etc. That con(cid:173)
`forms to most magazines' style.
`
`Sometimes the experts don't even get it right. Take something as common as 10Base-T. Or is it 10BaseT?
`10Base-T thing is an
`IEEE standard. So you'd think they'd know. Forget it. Go to their web site,
`www.ieee.org. You'll find as many hits for 10Base-T as for 10BaseT. Ray and I checked every known and
`unknown expert in the Western world (i.e. those living within a block or two of Ray). We now believe the
`correct spelling is 1 OBase-T.
`
`once as two separate words and once
`Sometimes, I don't simply know. So I may list the definition twice -
`as one complete word. As words and terms evolve, I change them in each edition. I try to conform each new
`edition to "telecomese" and "lnternetese" as it's spoken and written at that time.
`
`BITS AND BYTES PER SECOND. ALL ABOUT SPEED
`Telecom transmission speed has confused many of my readers. Read this. I hope this will help:
`
`The telecom and computer literature is loaded with references to Bps and bps. You'll see them as Kbps or
`KBps, or Kbits/sec. You'll see them as Mbps or MBps. You'll see them as Gbps or GBps. Not much consis(cid:173)
`tency. Let me explain:
`
`First, K means Kilo or a thousand. M means mega or one million. And G means giga, which is a thousand
`million, or 1,000,000,000. Kbps means a thousand bits ·per second. And that's a telecom transmission term
`meaning that you're transmitting (and/or receiving) one thousand bits in one second.
`
`V
`
`Page 9 of 12
`
`

`

`KBps (with a big B) means one thousand bytes per second. That's a computer term. And it usually refers to
`speeds inside the computer, e.g. from your hard disk to your CPU (central processing unit -
`your main
`microprocessor). There's a big difference between a bit and a byte. A byte is eight bits.
`
`That's the way it's meant to be. But, there's a lot of sloppy writing out there. You'll see MBps or MB/s also
`meaning one million bits per second as a telecom transmission speed. You really have to figure out if the
`writer means telecom transmission -
`i.e. anything outside the computer -
`or if it's internal to the comput(cid:173)
`er in which case it's bytes and a computer term. You can usually tell from the context.
`
`Measuring the speed of a communications line is not easy. And tools to measure lines are still very primi(cid:173)
`tive. Look at the strange speed reports you get from Microsoft Windows Dial-up Networking, or from its
`reports of download speeds. Notice how inconsistent Microsoft is ab·out measuring spe~d. About the only
`certain thing you know is that the speed of a circuit is always measured by the slowest part of the circuit. Look
`at the Internet. You might be getting horribly slow downloads, despite bei.ng on a T-1. That might be due to
`a horribly overloaded server at the other end or it might be due to the fact that your T-1 is overloaded with
`other users at the office, also downloading. These days with faster lines what's often a gating a factor is the
`speed of your PC. It may be simply not be fast enough for your PC's browser to keep up with the speed of
`your incoming bits. In which case you need a faster PC -
`it happened at our home when we got the DSL
`line. We had to upgrade to faster machines.
`
`Virtually all telecom transmission is full duplex and symmetrical. This means if you read that T-1 is 1,544,000
`bits per second, it's full duplex (both ways simultaneously) and symmetrical (both directions the same
`speed). That means it's 1,544,000 bits per second in both directions simultaneously. If the circuit is not full
`duplex or not symmetrical, this dictionary points that out. For now, the major asymmetrical (but still full
`duplex) eircuit is the xDSL family, starting with ADSL, which stands for asymmetric, which means unbal(cid:173)
`anced. The DSL "family" no longer starts with "A," and most of it (but not all of it) is stlll asymmetrical. The
`one major exception, SDSL (Symmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) is clearly symmetrical.
`
`There's one more complication. Inside computers, they measure storage in bytes. Your hard disk contains this
`many bytes, let's say eight gigabytes (thousand million bytes). That's fine. But they're not bytes the way we
`think of them in internal computer transmission terms. They're different and they have to do with a way com(cid:173)
`puter stores material -
`on hard disks or in RAM. They're what I call "storage bytes." When we talk 1 Kb of
`storage bytes, we really mean 1,024 bytes. This come~. from the way storage is actually handled inside a com(cid:173)
`puter, and calculated thus: two raised to the power of ten, thus 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 1,024. Ditto
`for one million, two raised to the power of twenty, thus 1,048,576 bytes. See also BPs.
`
`WHICH WORDS GET DEFINED?
`Which words get defined? These are my rules: All the important terms in the field. No proprietary products,
`i.e. those made by only one firm. No proprietary terms. My rules are not precise. Writing a dictionary is very
`personal. I read over 100 magazines a month. I study. I cogitate. I try to understand. Eventually, my wife calls,
`"Enough with the words, already. It's 2:00 AM. Time to .sleep."
`
`HOW THIS DICTIONARY HANDLES PLURALS
`Plurals give trouble. The plural of PBX is PBXs, not PBX's. The plural of PC is PCs, not PC's, despite what
`the New York Times says. The Wall Street Journal and all the major computer magazines agree with me. The
`plural possessive is PBXs' and PCs', which looks a little strange, but is correct. In this dictionary, I spell the
`numbers one through nine. Above nine, I write the numbers as arabic numerals, i.e. 10, 11, 12, etc.
`
`There are no rights or wrongs in the spelling business, except that my dictionary is now the correct way of
`spelling telecom words. My dictionary is correct, because it's the biggest seller (by far). Lawyers use it in
`court. They get judgments based on what's in my dictionary. Or what was in my dictionary. They often call me
`
`vi
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`Page 10 of 12
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`

`and beg me for a ten-year old copy of my dictionary. I always put an outrageous price on my "precious per(cid:173)
`sonal library" copies. Sometimes they pay. Most times they don't. ·Cheaper people you'll rarely find.
`
`A OR AN? HERE'S THE LOGIC
`I admit my fallibility. This edition of this book is riddled with "a" when it should be "an" and "an" when it
`should be "a." I've never been confused. I always believe "an" is used before vowels, and "a" before conso(cid:173)
`nants. Not so, says my friend, Jay Delmar, who edits technical documentation. Here's his explanation.
`
`Concerning the problem of what article ("a" or "an") should be used with a word or an acronym, it all depends
`on how the acronym is pronounced, that is, whether it's pronounced as a string of letters or as a word. In
`some cases, the article would be the same. In others, the form would have to switch. Usually "an" is used
`before vowels, but some consonants require it as well, and some vowels require an "a." It all depends on the
`sound. Whether a letter is intrinsically a vowel or a consonant doesn't really matter; what matters is if it's pro(cid:173)
`nounced as a vowel or a consonant in the particular context.
`
`If an acronym is pronounced as a string of letters, the following shows the appropriate article to use with the
`first letter of the acronym:
`
`An A
`AB
`AC
`AD
`An E
`An F
`AG
`An H
`An I
`
`AJ
`AK
`An L
`An M
`An N
`An 0
`AP
`AO
`An R
`
`An S
`AT
`AU
`AV
`AW
`An X
`AY
`AZ
`
`If an acronym is pronounced as a word, the article might need to change:
`
`An RS-232, but a RAM (pronounced "ram")
`An STP, but a SRDM (pronounced "sardem") and a SLC (pronounced "slick")
`An FTP, but a FAIC (pronounced "fackey")
`An HIC, but a HICUP (pronounced "hiccup")
`
`According to The New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage, "The article a is used before all
`consonant sounds, including a sounded h, a long u, and an o with sound of w (as in one). The article an is
`used before all vowel sounds except a long u and before·words beginning with a silent h." This definition has
`never helped me because I've never really understood why in "an STP" the "s" sound is a vowel sound and
`in "a SRDM" the s sound is a consonant sound. Basically, I rely on my ear.
`
`The real trouble, of course, is that unless one is really, really familiar with the acronym, one doesn't know how
`it's actually used: pronounced as a string of letters or as a word. I thought SIPL would be "an SIPL" (an ess-eye(cid:173)
`pea-ell) until fairly recently. I didn't know it was pronounced "a sipple"-or "a sighpull" (I've heard rt both ways).
`
`Jay makes sense. I'm going to try to be more in line with his concepts in upcoming editions. But this one
`may have a few inconsistencies.
`
`vii
`
`Page 11 of 12
`
`

`

`NEWTON'S TELECOM DICTIONARY
`
`been assigned the appropriate rights.
`2. Under ISO 9660, a single CD-Rom disc.
`Volume label A name you can assign to a floppy or hard
`disk in MS-DOS. The name can be up to 11 characters in
`length. You can assign a label when you format a disk or, at
`a later time, using the LABEL command.
`Volume Serial Number A number assigned to a disk by
`MS-DOS. The FORMAT command creates the serial number
`on a disk.
`Volume Unit VU. The unit of measurement for electrical
`speech power in communications work. VUs are measured in
`declbels above 1 milliwatt. The measuring device is called a
`VU meter.
`VOM Abbreviation for VOLT-OHM-MILLIAMETER, probably
`the most common form of electronic test equipment. It mea(cid:173)
`sures 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.
`Vomit Comet A plane used to simulate zero-G for astro(cid:173)
`naut flight training. Trainers often get motion sickness inside.
`VON Voice On the Net (Internet), involving packetlzed 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 tele(cid:173)
`phone, 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 COALI(cid:173)
`·
`TION and PACKETIZED VOICE.
`VON Coalition The "Voice on the Net" (VON) Coalition is
`an Internet organization devoted to "eduGatlng consumers
`and the media by monitoring and supporting present and
`new developed telephony, video and audio technologies that
`are specifically designed and manufactured for the Internet
`community." It was formed, Inter alla, to provide a forum
`against the ACTA (America's Carriers Telecommunicatlons
`Association) petition to the FCC which sought to ban VON as
`a threat t