Updated February 19, 2009

(Definitions are drawn from and adapted mainly from Wikipedia)

1-10 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

1-10

1G
1st Generation wireless: first-generation wireless telephone technology, cellphones. These are the analog cellphone standards that were introduced in the 1980s and continued until being replaced by 2G digital cellphones.

2G
2nd Generation wireless telephone technology launched
commercially in 1991. Unlike their predecessors 2G phone conversations were digitally encrypted, 2G systems were significantly more efficient on the spectrum allowing for far greater mobile phone penetration levels; and 2G introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages. After 2G was launched, the previous mobile telephone systems were retrospectively dubbed 1G. While radio signals on 1G networks are analog, and on 2G networks are digital, both systems use digital signaling to connect the radio towers to the rest of the telephone system.

2.5G
“Second and a half generation” is a term used to describe 2G-systems that have implemented a packet switched domain in addition to the circuit switched domain. 2.5G is a stepping stone between 2G and 3G cellular wireless technologies. Although the terms “2G” and “3G” are officially defined, “2.5G” is not. It was invented for marketing purposes.

3G
3rd Generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2.5G. It is based on the ITU family of standards under the IMT-2000. 3G networks make possible a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. 3G services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment.

4G
4th Generation wireless (also known as Beyond 3G): the next complete evolution in wireless communications that will a comprehensive solution allowing voice, data, and streamed multimedia to be provided on an “Anytime, Anywhere” basis at higher data rates than previous generations.
4G cannot be an incremental evolution of current 3G technologies, but rather the total replacement of the current 3G networks and handsets.
There is no formal definition for what 4G, but it is intended to be a fully IP-based integrated system capable of providing between 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s speeds with premium quality and high security.

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A

Accounting Rates
International accounting rates are the traditional basis of the payments made by international telephone operators to each other for the delivery of international calls. 
The originating operator pays the terminating operator an agreed amount per minute, known as the settlement rate. The accounting rate is the sum of the settlement rate in each direction (usually the same) plus the costs of transit via a third country (if any).

ADSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line: a form of data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. It does this by utilizing frequencies that are not used by a voice telephone call.

Antitrust law (aka Competition law)
Prohibits agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities, bans abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that may lead to such a dominant position. Oversee mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited or approved subject to conditions.

APEC
Asia-Pacific Economic Community (or Cooperation): a forum for 21 Pacific Rim countries or regions (styled ‘member economies’) to discuss the regional economy, cooperation, trade, and investment. The membership is claimed to account for approximately 41% of the world’s population, approximately 56% of world GDP and about 49% of world trade.

API
Application Programming Interfaces: a set of functions, procedures, methods, classes, or protocols that an operating system, library, or service provides to support requests made by computer programs.

ARPA
Advance Research Projects Agency (see DARPA)

ARPU
Average Revenue per User: a measure used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies, it is the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers.

AT&T
American Telephone and Telegraph

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B

B-to-B
Business-to-Business (also B2B): is a term commonly used to describe commerce transactions between businesses, as opposed to those between businesses and other groups, such as business-to-consumers (B2C) or business-to-government (B2G). B2B is often used to describe an activity, such as B2B marketing, or B2B sales, that occurs between businesses and other businesses. The volume of B2B transactions is much higher than the volume of B2C transactions.

Bandwidth
The difference between the highest and lowest frequencies of a transmission channel (the width of its allocated band of frequencies).

Basic Telecom Services
Communication services that relay information that relay information in real time from end-to-end without manifpulating or enhancing the information.

Bottleneck
A point at which the performance or capacity of an entire system or network can be significantly influenced. Formally, a bottleneck lies on a network or system’s critical path and provides the lowest throughput. Whoever controls the bottleneck can exert significant power over the system permitting it to increase its profits and competitive position.

Broadband
The term has different meanings in different contexts. Its meaning has undergone substantial shifts. It refers to a signaling method that includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies. Broadband is always relative term. The wider the bandwidth, the greater is the information-carrying capacity.

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C

CCITT
ITU’s International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee: (now renamed The Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T)) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is based in Geneva.

ccTLD
country code Top-Level Domain: an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. All ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs. Creation and delegation of ccTLDs is performed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA

CDMA2000
Code division multiple access 2000: a hybrid 2.5G / 3G technology of mobile telecommunications standards that use CDMA, a multiple access scheme for digital radio, to send voice, data, and signalling data (such as a dialed telephone number) between mobile phones and cell sites.

Cheap Revolution
A term coined by Rich Kaarlgard that captures the consequences of the cumulative impact of (1) the price-performance dynamics
that resulted from a wide range of microelectronics innovations, (2) innovations in regard to fiber-optic and wireless bandwidth, (3) changes in software design and costs, and (4) the emerging cost and delivery structure of digital content.

The Cloud
A metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams). The Cloud is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet (“in the cloud”) without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them.

Commons
A resource over which a specific group has access and use rights.

Competition Law (See antitrust law)

Confederal structure
In modern political terms, usually takes the form of a permanent union of sovereign states for common action in relation to other states Confederations usually are created by a treaty or a common constitution to deal with important issues such as foreign affairs or a common currency, with the central authority being required to provide support for all members.

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D

DARPA
Defense Advance Research Projects Agency: an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies, including computer networking and the first hypertext system. Its original name was simply Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but it was renamed DARPA (for Defense) on March 23, 1972, then back to ARPA on February 22, 1993, and then back to DARPA again on March 11, 1996.

Digital Divide
The gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate in a dgitial world. It is the unequal access by some members of the society to information and communication technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. Groups often discussed in the context of a digital divide include gender, income, race and location. The term global digital divided refers to differences in technology access between countries.

DMCA
Digital Millennium Copyright Act: a 1998 United States copyright law that extended the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users. The DMCA criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control and heightens penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

DNS
Domain Name System: a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet. It associates information assigned to participants with domain names. It also translates humanly meaningful domain names to the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment to locate and address these devices worldwide. In essence, the DNS is the “phone book” for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses.

Domain Name
A symbolic representation of mostly numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows resources to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally, in effect changing the IP address. This translation from domain names to IP addresses and vice versa is accomplished with the global facilities of Domain Name System (See DNS).

DRM
Digital Rights Management: a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. The term is used to describe technologies, which make the unauthorized use of media or devices technically formidable. It can also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices.

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E

EC2
Elastic Compute Cloud: a commercial web service provided by Amazon.com which allows paying customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications. EC2 allows scalable deployment of applications by providing a web services interface through which customers can request any number of Virtual Machines, i.e. server instances, on which they can load any software of their choice. Current users are able to create, launch, and terminate server instances on demand, hence the term “elastic”.

ENUM
Electronic Number Mapping system: a suite of protocols to unify the telephone numbering system with DNS, the Internet addressing system.

ERP
Enterprise Resource Planning: an enterprise-wide information system designed to coordinate all the resources, information, and activities needed to complete business processes such as order fulfillment or billing.

ETSI
European Telecommunications Standards Institute: an independent, non-profit, standardization organization of the telecommunications industry (equipment makers and network operators) in Europe, with worldwide projection.

EU
European Union: a political and economic union of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. It was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 on the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community.

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F

FCC
Federal Communications Commission: a US government agency established by the Communications Act of 1934 that regulates all non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum (including radio and television broadcasting), all interstate telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable), and all international communications that originate or terminate in the United States.

FTA
Free trade agreement (or area): An agreement by two or more countries to eliminate tariffs, quotas, and preferences on most (if not all) goods and services between them.

FTTH
Fiber to the home: a network architecture that uses optical fiber to replace all or part of the copper local loop used for telecommunications

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G

GAC
Governmental Advisory Committee is an advisory committee of representatives of many national governments that exists within ICANN. It receives advice on governmental interests and needs

GATS
General Agreement on Trade in Services: a 1995 WTO treaty that emerged from Uruguay Round trade negotiations. GATS extended the multilateral trading system to the service sector. All members of the WTO are signatories to the GATS. The basic WTO principle of most favored nation treatment applies to GATS.

GATT
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade: a treaty that emerged in 1950 when countries could not agree to establish an International Trade Organization. It reduced barriers to international trade through the reduction of tariff barriers, quantitative restrictions and subsidies on trade through a series of agreements. The functions of the GATT were taken over by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was established during the final round of negotiations in early 1990s.

GDP
Gross domestic product: one measure of a country’s national income and output. GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced within the country in a specified period of time. It is also considered the sum of a value added at every stage of production of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.

GHz
Gigahertz: a measure of frequency, informally defined as the number of cycles occurring per second. Gigahertz are commonly used to describe radio and audio frequencies. 1 GHz is equal to one billion cycles per second. (See MHz)

Governance
The decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists either of a separate process or of a specific part of management or leadership processes. Sometimes people set up a government to administer these processes and systems.

Grid computing
A form of distributed computing whereby a “super and virtual computer” is composed of a cluster of networked, loosely-coupled computers, acting in concert to perform very large tasks.

GSM
Global System for Mobile Communication: a popular standard for mobile phones. Its ubiquity made international roaming common between mobile phone operators, enabling subscribers to use phones in many parts of the world. GSM is a second-generation (2G) mobile phone system that made it easier to build data communications into the system.

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H

HIPAA
Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act of 1996: protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs. It also requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.

HTML
HyperText Markup Language: the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects

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I

IANA
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, DNS root zone management, media types, and other Internet protocol assignments. It is operated by ICANN.

ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (pronounced eye-can): a non-profit corporation created in 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government. ICANN manages the assignment of domain names and IP addresses. The technical work of ICANN is referred to as the IANA function. ICANN also helps preserve the operational stability of the Internet; promote competition, expand representation of the global Internet community; and develop policies through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

ICT
Information and Communication Technology: an umbrella term that includes all technologies for the manipulation and communication of information. ICT is sometimes used in preference to Information Technology (IT), particularly in the education and government communities. In the common usage it is often assumed that ICT is synonymous, but ICT is broader. ICT encompasses any medium to record information and technology for broadcasting information. It includes the wide variety of computing hardware, the rapidly developing personal hardware market comprising mobile phones, personal devices, MP3 players, and more. Technologies such as broadcasting and wireless mobile telecommunications are explicitly included under ICT.

IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force: develops and promotes Internet standards, dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. It is an open standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements. All participants and leaders are volunteers, though their work is usually funded by their employers or sponsors.

IGF
Internet Governance Forum: a multi-stakeholder forum for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance. Its establishment was announced by the UN Secretary General in July 2006. It first convened in October/November 2006.

IM
Instant messaging: a technology (along with chat) that creates the possibility of real-time text-based communication between two or more participants over the Internet or some form of internal network/intranet.

Inflection point
The point at which the old strategic point dissolves and gives way to a new one.

Intellectual property
A legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copytights, patents, and trademarks. Under intellectual property law, the holder of one of these abstract properties has certain exclusive rights to the creative work, commercial symbol, or invention by which it is covered.

Interconnection
The physical linking of a carrier’s network with equipment or facilities not belonging to that network. The term may refer to a connection between a carrier’s facilities and the equipment belonging to its customer, or to a connection between two or more carriers.

Interoperability
A property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). In telecommunications, the ability of systems, units, or forces to provide services to and accept services from other systems, units, or forces and to use the services exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together.

IP
Internet protocol: a protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). The first major version of addressing structure, Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), remains the dominant protocol of the Internet, although the successor, Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is actively deployed worldwide.

IPR
Intellectual Property Rights: a legal field related to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights. Under intellectual property law, the holder of one of these abstract properties has certain exclusive rights to the creative work, commercial symbol, or invention by which it is covered.

IPTV
Internet Protocol television: a system where a digital television service is delivered using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure, which may include delivery by a broadband connection. IPTV is television content that is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks, instead of being delivered through traditional broadcast and cable formats.

ISO
International Organization for Standards: an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. ISO promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial standards.

ISP
Internet Service Provider: a company that offers their customers access to the Internet. The ISP connects to its customers using a data transmission technology appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol datagrams, such as dial-up, DSL, cable modem, or dedicated high-speed interconnects. ISPs may provide Internet e-mail accounts to users so that they can communicate with one another by sending and receiving electronic messages through their ISPs’ servers.

IT
Information Technology: a term that encompasses many aspects of computing and technology. (See ICT)

ITU
International Telecommunication Union: founded as the International Telegraph Union in 1865, its main tasks include standardization, allocation of the radio spectrum, and organizing interconnection arrangements between different countries to allow international phone calls. It is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations.

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J

JETRO
Japanese External Trade Organization: an independent government agency established in 1951 to consolidate Japan’s efforts in export promotion. JETRO also provides information and support to foreign companies looking for successful entry and expansion in the Japanese market.

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L

Light touch regulation
Regulation that does not involve imposing or maintaining unnecessary burdens.

LTE
Long Term Evolution: the 3G standardization work begun by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project in late 2004. The goal is to define a set of high-level requirements for mobile communications systems to compete with other emerging cellular broadband technologies, particularly WiMAX.

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M

Managed entry

Megabit
When used to describe data storage a megabit is 1,024 kilobits. When used to described data transfer rates a megabit refers to 1 million bits. Often networks are measured in megabits per second (Mbps).

Megabyte
A megabyte is is a unit of information or computer storage equal to 1,048,576 bytes or 1,024 kilobytes. Large computer files are typically measured in megabytes.

MHz
Megahertz: a measure of frequency, informally defined as the number of cycles occurring per second. Megahertz are commonly used to describe radio and audio frequencies. 1 GHz is equal to one million cycles per second. (See GHz).

Modularity
A continuum that describes the degree to which a system’s components may be separated and recombined. It refers to the level of interoperability between components, and the degree to which the “rules” of the system architecture allow or prohibit the mixing and matching of components.

Moore’s Law
In 1965 Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, predicted with regard to semiconductor technology that “the number of transistors and resistors on a chip doubles every 18 months.”

Multilateral
Involving or participated in by two or more nations or parties

Multisided Platform
A multi-sided platform serves two or more distinct types of customers that are mutually dependent and “whose joint participation makes the platform valuable to each.

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N

NAFTA
North American Free Trade Area: a trilateral trade bloc in North America created by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The agreements took effect on January 1, 1994. The trade bloc is the largest in the world and second largest by nominal GDP comparison. (See also FTA)

Network Infrastructure
The architecture, in terms of equipment and connections, that makes up a network.

Network Neutrality
A principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, which does not restrict content, sites or platforms, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.

NGN
Next-Generation Network: a broad term to describe some key architectural evolutions in telecommunication core and access networks that will be deployed before 2020. The idea is that one network transports all information and services (voice, data, and all sorts of media such as video) by encapsulating these into packets, as on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term “all-IP” is sometimes used to describe the transformation towards NGN.

NGO
Non-governmental organization: a legally constituted organization created by private organizations or people with no participation or representation of any government. In the cases in which NGOs are funded totally or partially by governments, the NGO maintains its non-governmental status insofar as it excludes government representatives from membership in the organization.

NTT
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone: a telephone company that dominates the telecommunication market in Japan. NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and second in the world in terms of revenue.

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O

ODM
Original Design Manufacturer: a company that manufactures a product that ultimately will be branded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the brand firm to produce without having to engage in the organization or running of a factory. A primary attribute of this business model is that the ODM owns and/or designs in-house the products that are branded by the buying firm.

OECD
Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development: an international organisation of 30 countries that accept the principles of representative democracy and free-market economy. Most OECD members are high-income economies and are regarded as developed countries.

OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer: a company that uses a component made by a second company in its own product, or sells the product of the second company under its own brand.

OFDMA
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access: a frequency-division multiplexing scheme used as a digital multi-carrier modulation method.

Open Source
A development methodology, which offers practical accessibility to a product’s source goods and knowledge. Open source is one possible design approach. Others see open source as a critical strategic element of their operations. Open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.

OS
Operating System: the software component of a computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer. The operating system acts as a host for applications that are run on the machine.

OSI
Open Systems Interconnection: an effort to standardize networking started in 1982 by the International Organization for Standardization along with the ITU-T.

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P

PC
Personal Computer: any computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator.

PDC
Personal digital cellular: a 2G mobile-phone standard developed and used exclusively in Japan.

Peering
Voluntary interconnection of administratively separate Internet networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic between the customers of each network. The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or “sender keeps all,” meaning that neither party pays the other for the exchanged traffic, instead, each derives revenue from its own customers. Peering requires physical interconnection of the networks, an exchange of routing information and is often accompanied by peering agreements of varying formality, from “handshake” to thick contracts.

Peer-to-peer (or P2P)
P2P networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hc connections. P2P allows diverse connectivity between participants in a network rather than conventional centralized resources where a relatively low number of servers provide the core value to a service or application.

Platform
A computing hardware architecture or software framework (inclduing application frameworks) that allows software to run. Most platforms include a computer’s architecture, operating system (see OS), programming languages, and runtime libraries or graphical user interface.

“Plug and Play”
A computer feature that allows the addition of a new device, normally a peripheral, without physical reconfiguration of device resources, or user intervention in resolving device conflicts.

Plurilateral
Referring to an agreement or a negotiation involving more than two countries, but not a great many, which would be multilateral.

PNP
Personal Network Platform: delivers core network functions to individuals. PNP offers full flexibility, transparency, scalability, and expandability.

Principal/Agent Problem
In political science and economics this treats the difficulties that arise under conditions of incomplete and asymetric information when a principal employs an agent. Various mechanisms may be used to try to align the interests of the agent with those of the principal.

Property Rights
The exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used, whether that resource is owned by government or by individuals. All economic goods have a property rights attribute.

PTTs
Post, telegraph, and telephone authorities: are or were government agencies responsible for postal mail, telegraph, and telephone services. Such monopolies existed in many countries, but since the 1980s many of them have been partially or completely privatized.

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R

R&D
Research and Development: creative work undertaken on a systematic basis to increase the stock of human knowledge and the use of this expanding stock of knowledge to devise new applications.

rBoc
regional Bell operating company: US telephone companies that were created on January 1, 1984, as a the result of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T. The original agreement created seven rBocs (Baby Bells): Ameritech — (acquired by SBC in 1999), Bell Atlantic — (acquired GTE in 2000 and changed its name to Verizon), BellSouth — (acquired by AT&T Inc. in 2006), NYNEX — (acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1996), Pacific Telesis — (acquired by SBC in 1997), Southwestern Bell — (changed its name to SBC in 1995; acquired AT&T Corp. in 2005 and changed its name to AT&T Inc.), and US West — (acquired by Qwest in 2000).

RFIDs
Radio frequency identification devices: A tag that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. It relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using radio frequency tags or transponders.

RSS
Really Simple Syndication: a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video – in a standardized format. An RSS includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs.

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S

S3
Simple Storage System: an online storage web service offered by Amazon Web Services that first became available in the US in March 2006 and in Europe in November 2007.

SaaS
Software as a Service: a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. For a price, SaaS eliminates the need to install and run the application on the customer’s own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer’s burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support.

SETI
Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence: the collective name for a number of activities to detect intelligent extraterrestrial life. SETI projects survey the sky to detect the existence of transmissions from a civilization on a distant planet.

SME
Small and Medium Enterprise: companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits. (SME is used more in the EU and in international organizations; in the US the term small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often is favored.) In the EU firms with fewer than 50 employees are categorized as “small”, and those with fewer than 250 as “medium”. In the US small business often refers to those with fewer than 100 employees, while medium-sized business often refers to those with fewer than 500 employees.

SMS
Short Message Service: a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. The SMS technology has facilitated the development and growth of text messaging. SMS is so closely associated with text messaging and that in many countries it is used as a synonym for a text message or the act of sending a text message, even when a different protocol is being used.

SNA
Systems Network Architecture: IBM’s proprietary networking architecture created in 1974. It is a complete protocol stack for interconnecting computers and their resources. SNA describes the protocol and is, in itself, not actually a program. The implementation of SNA takes the form of various communications packages.

SOA
Service-Oriented Architecture: In computing, SOA provides methods for systems development and integration where systems group functionality around business processes and package these as interoperable services. SOA also describes IT infrastructure that allows different applications to exchange data with one another as they participate in business processes.

Spectrum
The “electromagnetic spectrum” (usually just spectrum) is the range of all possible electromagnetic radiation frequencies. The electromagnetic spectrum extends from below the frequencies used for modern radio (at the long-wavelength end) through gamma radiation (at the short-wavelength end), covering wavelengths from thousands of miles down to a fraction the size of an atom.

Stack
In computer science, an abstract data tupe and data structure based on the principle of Last in First Out (LIFO). Stacks are used extensively at every level of a modern computer system. The stack is ubiquitous. A stack-based computer system is one that stores temporary information primarily in stacks, rather than hardware CPU registers.

Standard
A technical standard is an established norm or requirement. It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria, methods, processes and practices. (A custom, convention, company product, or corporate standard, which becomes generally accepted and dominant is often called ade facto standard.) A technical standard may be developed privately or unilaterally by a corporation, regulatory body, or military. Standards can be developed by groups such as trade unions, and trade associations.

Supply chain
The system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer.

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T

TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP) (also known as The Internet Protocol Suite): two early two networking protocols used for the Internet and other similar networks. TCP/IP, like many protocol suites, may be viewed as a set of layers. Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. Upper layers are logically closer to the user and deal with more abstract data, relying on lower layer protocols to translate data into forms that can eventually be physically transmitted. The TCP/IP model consists of four layers. From lowest to highest, these are the Link Layer, the Internet Layer, the Transport Layer, and the Application Layer.

TD-SCDMA
Time division synchronous code division multiple access: an alternate 3G mobile telecommunications standard, being pursued in China by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology, Datang, and Siemens AG, in an attempt not to be dependent on Western technology. (See TDMA and CDMA2000)

TDMA
Time division multiple access: a channel access method for shared medium (usually radio) networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots.

TLDs
Top-level domains: the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters that follow the final dot of any domain name. Management of most top-level domains is delegated to responsible parties or organizations by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (see ICANN), which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and is in charge of maintaining the Domain Name System (see DNS) root zone.

Trading Rights

Transparency
The extent to which laws, regulations, agreements, and practices affecting international trade are open, clear, measurable, and verifiable

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U

UMB
Ultra Mobile Broadband: the brand name for the project to improve the CDMA2000 mobile phone standard for next generation applications and requirements.

Unbundling
Usually associate with local loop unbundling, it is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecom operators to connect to the telephone exchange’s central office to the customer’s’s premises.

USTR
Office of the United States Trade Representative: the US agency responsible for developing and recommending US trade policy, conducting trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels, and coordinating trade policy within the US is part of the Executive Office of the President.

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V

VAN
Value-Added Network: VANs are public networks that add value to the basic communication provided by common carriers by offering specialized services such as access to commercial data bases, E-mail and video conferencing. A VAN is where an ISP provides an extra service as well as the Internet line.

VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol: a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony and Internet telephony, as well as voice over broadband, broadband telephony, and broadband phone. VoIP systems usually interface with the traditional public switched telephone network to allow for transparent phone communications worldwide. Skype and Vonage are notable service provider examples.

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W

Web 2.0
The changing trends in the use of Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, and blogs. Web 2.0 does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to changes in the ways software developers and end-users make use of the Web.

W-CDMA
Wideband code division multiple access: a type of 3G cellular network follow-on to the 2G GSM networks deployed worldwide. (See also CDMA2000 and TD-SCDMA).

WiFi
Wireless Fidelity: the wireless technology used in home networks, mobile phones, video games, and other electronic devices that require some form of wireless networking capability.

WiMAX
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access: a telecom technology that provides for wireless transmission of data using a variety of transmission modes, from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular-type access. The technology provides up to 70 Mb/sec symmetric broadband speed without the need for cables. Its creators describe WiMAX as “a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.

WRC
World Radiocommunication Conference: organized by the ITU to review, and, if necessary, revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum, and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits. It is held every two to four years. Prior to 1993 it was called the World administrative radio conference (WARC).

WSIS
World Summit on Information Society: two UN-sponsored conferences about information, communication and the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. Its advocates aimed to bridge the “global digital divide” separating rich countries from poor countries by spreading access to the Internet in the developing world.

WTO
World Trade Organization: an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize internetaional trade. The WTO came into being on 1 January 1, 1995, and is the successor to the GATT. The WTO deals with the rules of trade between most nations nations; it is responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements, and is in charge of policing member countries’ adherence to WTO agreements. The WTO has 153 members, which represents more than 95% of total world trade.

WWW
World Wide Web: a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. Web browsers are used to view Web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them using hyperlinks. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and released in 1992.