8820-A2-GN20-30
March 2001
GL-1
Glossary
10BaseT
A 10-Mbps Ethernet LAN that works on twisted-pair wiring.
alarm system
Consists of an audible or visual alarm in the central office indicating the rack with an alarm
condition.
ATM
Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A high-speed, low-delay, connection-oriented switching and
multiplexing technique using 53-byte cells to transmit different types of data concurrently
across a single physical link.
backplane
A common bus at the rear of a nest or chassis that provides communications and power to
circuit card slots.
bandwidth
The range of frequencies that can be passed by a transmission medium, or the range of
electrical frequencies a device is capable of handling.
BOOTP
Bootstrap Protocol. Described in RFCs 951 and 1084, it is used for booting diskless nodes.
bps
Bits per second. Indicates the speed at which bits are transmitted across a data connection.
central office
CO. The PSTN facility that houses one or more switches serving local telephone
subscribers.
CSU
Channel Service Unit. A device that connects service user equipment such as a DSU to the
local digital telephone loop, protects the line from damage, and regenerates the signal.
DCE Manager
Data Communications Equipment Manager. A network management system that helps the
network administrator manage devices using Simple Network Management Protocol
(SNMP) and HP OpenView.
DHCP
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. A Microsoft protocol for dynamically allocating IP
addresses.
DHCP server
A server which uses DHCP to allocate network addresses and deliver configuration
parameters to dynamically configured hosts.
DS3
Digital Signal level 3. A digital signal transmitted at the rate of 44.746 Mbps in North
America.
DSL
Digital Subscriber Line. The non-loaded, local-loop copper connection between the
customer and the first node within the network.
DSLAM
Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer. A platform for DSL modems that provides
high-speed data transmission with POTS over traditional twisted-pair wiring.
DSU
Data Service Unit. Data communications equipment that provides timing, signal
regeneration, and an interface to data terminal equipment. A subrate DSU/CSU is normally
referred to as a DSU.
Ethernet
A type of network that supports high-speed communication among systems. It is a
widely-implemented standard for LANs. All hosts are connected to a coaxial cable where
they contend for network access using a Carrier Sense, Multiple Access with Collision
Detection (CSMA/CD) paradigm.
Ethernet address
A six-part hexadecimal number in which a colon separates each part (for example,
8:0:20:1:2f:0). This number identifies the Ethernet communications board installed in a PC
and is used to identify the PC as a member of the network.
