List of telephony terminology

This is a List of telephony terminology and acronyms which relate to telephony networks.

B

*Blue box - a device that was used to bypass the normal long distance call switching tones typically used to obtain free calls.

C

*call originator - (or "calling party", "caller" or "A-party") a person or device that initiates a telephone call by dialling a telephone number.
*call waiting - a system that notifies a caller of another incoming telephone call by sounding a sound in the earpiece.
*called party
*Caller
*calling party
*conference call (multi-party call)
*COCOT

E

*emergency telephone number
*end instrument
*Engset calculation
*Erlang unit

F

*fax - (contraction of "facsimile") a device connected to the telephone network to enable documents to be scanned and sent to a receiving fax machine.

H

*Handoff
*Handover
*help desk
*Hunt Group

I

*infrastructure
*interactive voice response (IVR)

L

*line
*local loop
*long-distance operator

O

*operator assistance

P

*person-to-person
*Pupinization
*Plain old telephone service, or "POTS"

R

*red telephone box
*Red box
*ringer equivalency number (REN)
*Ringing signal
*rural radio service

*Smartphone
*station-to-station

T

*Tandem switch
*telemarketing
*telephone
*telephone booth
*telephone call
*telephone card
*telephone directory
*telephone exchange
*telephone tapping
*Teletraffic engineering
*trap and trace
*TWX

V

*vertical service code
*voicemail

W

*Western Union
*Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS)
*WATS line
*wireless network
*Wi-Fi

Z

*Zenith number

Acronyms