Understanding Jargons Related To Private Automatic Branch Exchanges And Home Phones
When the mobile phone first made its debut couple of decades back
, people thought that it was the death knell on the home phone service. As we all know, decades later, that the predictions couldnt have been any farther from truth. Home phones have grown in stature and so have the telephone companies that were providing voice services the only service they knew for almost a century. Competition drives innovation and that is what telecom companies like Verizon did with their FiOS services (TV, Internet and Home Phone services).That they could understand the imminence of a do-or-die war with mobile services sent them spiraling to provide more services at a lesser cost to customers. And as a result we see them today providing internet service and TV programming on an unprecedented scale. In fact the distinction between an entertainment service provider and a communication provider is getting blurred as the days go. As services began to get smarter so did technology and that is the reason why we read and hear a lot of jargon these days. Understanding the jargon is important for customers like you. When you understand reading those fine letters become easier and you will be able to tell the facts from puffery that companies use to sell services.
Here are some jargons (some arent, they have become common these days) you need to understand with regard to home phones and peripheral devices like PABX (Private Automatic Branch Exchange), they have meanings vastly different from those assigned in lexicons.
a.Attendant A usual term that is assigned to a person manning the PABX in large enterprises with hundreds of telephones connected to it. The principal responsibilities they assume are: manually connect incoming calls, assist in routing an out bound call request and help connect people within the PABX system.
b.Call Log As the name itself suggests, is a history of every call that comes in and goes out. Depending upon the sophistication of the PABX equipment, it can store information pertaining to call duration, call cost, unattended calls, call source, party called and if privacy is not an issue, then, the conversation itself.
c.Soft Keys You will most find them in PABX, but they are nowadays a regular feature in some sophisticated telephone instruments. Their use is mainly for accessing some special features of the network. When telephones come from factories they have a default function assigned to them, but as a user you can always change it depending upon your needs.
d.Feature Access Codes (FAC) When telephones are made in factories, it is not always possible to predetermine all that the telephone is expected to do, because for most part many features depend on the network abilities of the service providers. FAC is a means to access these features which are programmable at the users end. Some technical information is often required for programming.
e.Interrupted Dial Tone They are the means to tell you that some information has been received by the telephone to start processing a command you have just given. In brief you may consider the short beep that they give out as some sort of an acknowledgement. They can come anytime; during a conversation or even while you hear the dial tone.
f.Off-hook It is a term you use to show that the receiver has been lifted out of the cradle. You can expect a lot of changes to take place on the face of the telephone. Miniscule lights will glow or go off depending on the configuration of the telephone. During off-hook your phone is ready for making an out bound call.
g.Private Line Some users within the enterprise can be important because their needs are special and waiting for an outside line is undesirable. Such points get special features like the ability to get a direct central office access by passing the organizations PABX. Such access rights are called Private Line.
by: nathanbrown