Glossary
Phone-system jargon, demystified.
Short, plain-English definitions of the terms that show up in cloud phone system contracts and configuration screens.
- ACD also: Automatic Call Distribution, Call distribution
- The system that routes inbound calls from a queue to the next available agent, using configurable strategies like round-robin or skills-based routing.
- BYOD also: Bring Your Own Device, Personal device policy
- The workplace policy of letting staff use personal devices for work, including business phone calls via softphone apps.
- Cloud PBX also: Cloud phone system, Internet PBX
- Any business phone system delivered over the internet rather than on-premise hardware - covers hosted PBX, multi-tenant SaaS PBX, and hybrid models.
- Codec also: Audio codec, Voice codec
- Audio compression format used by VoIP phone systems to package voice for transmission over a network.
- DID number also: Direct Inward Dial, DDI, Direct Inward Dialling
- An external phone number assigned directly to a specific extension or user, so callers reach that person without going through reception.
- Hosted PBX also: Hosted phone system, Managed PBX
- A phone system run in a data centre by a third-party provider, accessed over the internet - the modern alternative to on-prem PBX hardware.
- Hot-desking also: Hot desk, Desk hoteling, Flexible desking
- Staff sharing desks and logging into whichever desk handset they sit at - each phone becomes their extension for the session.
- IVR also: Interactive Voice Response, Auto-attendant, Phone menu
- The automated phone-menu system that greets callers, plays menu options, and routes calls based on caller selection or voice.
- MOS also: Mean Opinion Score, Call quality score
- A 1–5 scale measuring voice call quality. 4.0+ is good; below 3.5 is degraded.
- NBN voice also: VoIP over NBN, NBN telephony, NBN phone
- Voice calling delivered over the Australian National Broadband Network using VoIP/SIP - the standard for Australian business telephony since copper PSTN decommissioning.
- Number porting also: Porting, LNP, Local Number Portability, Phone porting, Number portability
- The regulated process of moving an Australian phone number from one carrier to another without changing the number.
- RTP also: Real-time Transport Protocol, Real-time Protocol
- The standard protocol used by VoIP systems to carry the actual audio of a call, in real time, over an IP network.
- SBC also: Session Border Controller
- A network device or virtual appliance that sits between SIP networks, providing security, NAT traversal, codec translation and call admission control.
- SIP also: Session Initiation Protocol
- The open-standard signalling protocol used by modern phone systems to set up, manage and tear down voice and video calls over the internet.
- SIP trunking also: SIP trunk, SIP line
- Virtual phone lines connecting a business's phone system to the public telephone network over the internet, using the SIP protocol.
- STIR/SHAKEN also: Caller ID authentication, STIR, SHAKEN
- A caller-ID authentication framework that lets carriers cryptographically sign and verify caller-ID information to reduce spoofed and spam calls.
