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HigherGround Support Glossary

Click on an index letter to navigate through our glossary terms:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z
  • B-CHANNEL
    One of the voice/data channels on an ISDN (see also) line. The "B" stands for "Bearer." There are two B-channels and one D-channel on a BRI (see also) circuit
  • BANDWIDTH
    The width of a communications channel. In telecommunications or analog communications, this is measured in cycles per second or HERTZ (see also). In computers or digital communications, bandwidth is measured in bits per second. Note that bandwidth is not usually measured in BAUD (see also). Though BAUD and BPS are often interchangeable when referring to serial communications, BAUD is usually reserved for that usage only.
  • BAUD
    A unit of one electronic state change per second, used mainly to measure the transmission of serial data over analog telephone lines via modems. 9600 baud means 9600 bits of data per second are being sent through the serial port or wire. Now, the more common term is BPS (BITS PER SECOND) (see also), since modern techniques often transmit more bits per second than there are state changes per second. In other words, state changes can represent more than one bit of data.
  • BAUDOT CODE
    Code standard for representing an alphanumeric character set using only 5 bits per character. Used mainly on old teletype machines.
  • BELL OPERATING COMPANY (BOC)
    One of the telephone companies that used to be a part of AT&T before its divestiture.
  • BIT (BINARY DIGIT)
    The smallest piece of information in a data stream, computer memory or storage medium. The term BIT is a contraction of the words "binary digit." A bit is a single digit of binary data storage in a computer; and can have either the value 0 or 1. Bits are represented electrically by setting solid state switches in computer chips as either off or on.
  • BLOCKING
    A condition in which lines or trunks are unusable because they are busy.
  • BPS (BITS PER SECOND)
    The number of BITs (see also) of data being sent through a digital communications path in one second. Used to measure data transfer rates between devices and over networks. See also BAUD.
  • BRI (BASIC RATE INTERFACE)
    Also referred to as BRI-ISDN. An ISDN (see also) circuit consisting of two B-channels (data channels) and one D-CHANNEL (see also), which is used for signaling and control information.
  • BUDGET
    (HG) The amount of money that is allocated to a station, department or division for a month of telephone usage. Used for cost allocation and control and exception reporting
  • BUSY HOUR
    The one-hour period in a 24-hour day when the communication traffic is the heaviest.
  • BUSY LAMP FIELD (BLF)
    A piece of phone system equipment with an array of indicator lights that gives a visual indication that a line, trunk or station is in use or off-hook.
  • BWT (BOTH-WAY TRUNK)
    A trunk that carries both incoming and outgoing traffic.
  • BYTE
    The unit of storage in a computer. On most personal computers, a byte contains eight BITs (see also). PCs convert all input data into bytes and use these units to store the information in memory or storage devices, manipulate the data and output the information for users' benefit. Internally, computer operations usually deal with one byte, two bytes, or four bytes at a time.