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POTS
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Plain Old Telephone Service.
Two wires going back to a central office that can connect you with
every other telephone line in the world. The first link has an
analog carrier appropriate for fax machines, slow modems, and cheap
telephone sets.
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VoIP
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Voice over Internet Protocol.
Literally, any telephone connection that uses computer networking
rather than standard, inexpensive 2-wire telephone cable to transmit
the conversation. It started out as a method for businesses to
distribute their PBX services to remote offices using the existing
computer connections rather than another expensive telco leased
line. Here it usually means having a two-way voice conversation
using the public internet for at least part of the transmission.
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Baby Bell
LBOC
LEC
OLC
Telco
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Your
traditional, old-style, local wired phone company. This may be a
remnant of 1978’s AT&T family, a regional full-service company
like Alltel, or a company like Excel or AT&T that buys local
service from one of the above and puts their name at the top of your
bill.
(Local Exchange Carrier, Local
Bell Operating Company, Other Local Carrier) |
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Ma Bell
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Technically,
AT&T or the successors to the AT&T mogopoly after its
antitrust breakup. Here it may apply to anyone selling legacy
technology.
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Cell(ular)
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Any
of a number of technologies that use multiple low-powered radio base
stations (towers) to provide communications over a complete large
geographic area. Base stations typically have a coverage of a few
miles and the user is unaware of switching from one to another.
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WiFi
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Any
of a number of technologies under the IEEE 802.11 standards that
allow connection to a computer network without wires. Base stations
typically have a range up to 100 meters or so and moving out of
range of one and into the range of another may involve several
seconds of lost connection while the systems adjust.
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IP
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Internet Protocol.
The set of standards that are used in almost every computer network,
whether two computers at your dentist’s office or the global
(virtual) system that we know as “The Internet.”
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