(See related pages)
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| Bandwidth | The frequency range of a telecommunications channel, which determines its maximum transmission rate. The speed and capacity of transmission rates are typically measured in bits per second (bps). Bandwidth is a function of the telecommunications hardware, software, and media used by the telecommunications channel. |
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| Client/Server Network | A computer network where end-user workstations (clients) are connected via telecommunications links to network servers and possibly to mainframe superservers. |
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| Coaxial Cable | A sturdy copper or aluminum wire wrapped with spacers to insulate and protect it. Groups of coaxial cables may also be bundled together in a bigger cable for ease of installation. |
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| Communications Satellite | Earth satellites placed in stationary orbits above the equator that serve as relay stations for communications signals transmitted from earth stations. |
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| Extranet | A network that links selected resources of a company with its customers, suppliers, and other business partners, using the Internet or private networks to link the organizations’ intranets. |
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| Fiber Optics | The technology that uses cables consisting of very thin filaments of glass fibers that can conduct the light generated by lasers for high-speed telecommunications. |
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| Internetwork Processor | Communications processors used by local area networks to interconnect them with other local area and wide area networks. Examples include switches, routers, hubs, and gateways. |
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| Intranet | An Internet-like network within an organization. Web browser software provides easy access to internal Web sites established by business units, teams, and individuals, and other network resources and applications. |
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| Legacy Systems | The older, traditional, mainframe-based business information systems of an organization. |
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| Local Area Network (LAN) | A communications network that typically connects computers, terminals, and other computerized devices within a limited physical area such as an office, building, manufacturing plant, or other worksite. |
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| Middleware | Software that helps diverse software programs and networked computer systems work together, thus promoting their interoperability. |
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| Modem | (MOdulator-DEModulator) A device that converts the digital signals from input/output devices into appropriate frequencies at a transmission terminal and converts them back into digital signals at a receiving terminal. |
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| Multiplexer | An electronic device that allows a single communications channel to carry simultaneous data transmissions from many terminals. |
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| Network | An interconnected system of computers, terminals, and communications channels and devices. |
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| Network Architecture | A master plan designed to promote an open, simple, flexible, and efficient telecommunications environment through the use of standard protocols, standard communications hardware and software interfaces, and the design of a standard multilevel telecommunications interface between end users and computer systems. TCP/IP: Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol. A suite of telecommunications network protocols used by the Internet, intranets, and extranets that has become a de facto network architecture standard for many companies. |
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| Network Computing | A network-centric view of computing in which “the network is the computer,” that is, the view that computer networks are the central computing resource of any computing environment. |
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| Open Systems | Information systems that use common standards for hardware, software, applications, and networking to create a computing environment that allows easy access by end users and their networked computer systems. |
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| Peer-to-Peer Network (P2P) | A computing environment in which end-user computers connect, communicate, and collaborate directly with one another via the Internet or other telecommunications network links. |
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| Protocol | A set of rules and procedures for the control of communications in a communications network. |
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| Telecommunications | Pertaining to the transmission of signals over long distances, including not only data communications but also the transmission of images and voices using radio, television, and other communications technologies. |
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| Telecommunications Processors | Internetwork processors such as switches and routers and other devices such as multiplexers and communications controllers that allow a communications channel to carry simultaneous data transmissions from many terminals. They may also perform error monitoring, diagnostics and correction, modulation demodulation, data compression, data coding and decoding, message switching, port contention, and buffer storage. |
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| Virtual Private Network | A secure network that uses the Internet as its main backbone network to connect the intranets of a company’s different locations or to establish extranet links between a company and its customers, suppliers, or other business partners. |
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| Wide Area Network (WAN) | A data communications network covering a large geographic area. |
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| Wireless LANs | Using radio or infrared transmissions to link devices in a local area network. |
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| Wireless Technologies | Using radio wave, microwave, infrared, and laser technologies to transport digital communications without wires between communications devices. Examples include terrestrial microwave, communications satellites, cellular and PCS phone and pager systems, mobile data radio, and various wireless Internet technologies. |