Glossary

This is an extract of The Open Group’s Mobile and Wireless glossary which can be found online at www.openwirelessdata.org.

A B C D E G H I K L M N O P R S T U W X
820.X IEEE set of standards describing physical and electrical topologies (physical and data link layers), cabling, and access scheme for LANs.
ANSI American National Standards Institute API (Applications Programming Interface)
ASCII The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a standard character set where each alphabetic letter and each number is represented by a binary code. A common for of data standard for data transmission.
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode; used to refer to both a technology and the service that uses it. Information is transmitted in fixed-size packets called cells. Sometimes called cell relay, as in frame relay (see below).
Base Station A transmitter and/or receiver that communicates with a radio-enabled mobile device.
bps Bits per second; a measure for data transmission rate.
Browser A graphical interface originally employed to access the world wide web, increasingly the interface of choice for some applications designers.
Bluetooth A short distance mobile radio mechanism for portable devices.
CCIRN Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networks.
CCITT International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (now the ITU).
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access is to America what GSM is to Europe and the world outside America and Japan. An air protocol considered ideal for handling multiple channels of data traffic.
CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data.
Circuit Switched An uninterrupted connection between two callers designed for voice but can be dedicated to voice or data communication. Costs are typically based on total connect time.
Compact-HTML Also called DHTML, a derivative of HTML for mobile devices; also see HDML.
Compression Using algorithms to decrease the size of a data object to be transmitted, thereby increasing the efficiency. A similar algorithm will expand the file back to its original size at the point the object is used.
CSMA Carrier sense multiple access; a structure where stations listen to network activity and if it is not in use a station is permitted to transmit. CSMA is often combined with Collision Detection (CD).
CTIA Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
DAMPS The prevailing standard in the U.S., Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System. Based on the IS-54 (800MHz) and IS-136 (1900 MHz) standards-often referred to as TDMA (see below).
DECT Radio standard for cordless telephones providing wired telephone quality. Planned to handle data. Stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications.
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol provides dynamic address allocation in TCP/IP configurations in addition to static definitions DHTML-also called Compact HTML, a derivative of HTML for mobile devices.
DSL Digital Subscriber line; a digital connection between a customer and the telephone company.
DSP Digital Signal Processing refers to various techniques for improving the reliability and accuracy of digital communications.
ECMA European Computer Manufacturers Association.
ECTF Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum.
Encryption Privacy encoding of voice and/or data.
ETSI  European Technical Standards Institute established by the European Commission.
Extranet  The part of an organization’s internal web sites that is available to external customers and suppliers, and so on.
GPRS  General Packet Radio Service, expected from 2000 as an extension to the GSM standard for packet data services.
GPS  Global Positioning System allows an exact position anywhere in the world to be calculated using triangulation form at least three satellites to arrive at a grid reference.
GSM  Global System for Mobile Communications-a world standard for digital cellular networks widely accepted outside the U.S. and Japan. It operates at 900MHz supporting data rates up to 9600bps currently (planned to extend to 14,400bps and beyond).
GSM1800  A variant of GSM used by some governments to provide more air capacity. Identical to GSM except that it uses 1800MHz. Some providers use GSM1800/1900 dual band (see GSM1900 below).
GSM1900  A U.S. derivative of GSM using 1900MHz.
GSM Association  A non-profit Dublin-based organization founded to champion the GSM standard, including GSM 900MHz, GSM1800, and GSM1900. Has 200 to 300 members form over 100 countries striving to evolve the GSM standard.
HDLC  High-Level Data Link Control; a bit-level link layer protocol developed by the ISO.
HDML  Handheld Device Markup Language; an HTML derivative designed for mobile devices with restricted display ability. The Wireless Applications Protocol (WAP) forum wants to rename HDML to WML-Wireless Markup Language.
HSCSD  High Speed Circuit Switched Data proposes to increase GSM data throughput by combining (two or more of eight) 9600bps channels. Likely to be superseded by GPRS (see above).
HTML  HyperText Markup Language, based on the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) used to create pages on a World Wide Web server (see Compact HTML).
HDTP  Handheld Device Transfer Protocol based on HTTP (see below) designed to handle dropped connections.
HTTP  HyperText Transfer Protocol designed to transfer pages between web servers and target devices.
IEEE  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
IESG  Internet Engineering Steering Group.
IETF  Internet Engineering Task Force.
IETF Mobile  Internet Engineering Task Force Mobile IP working group.
IMT-2000  International Mobile Telecommunications 2000 is the standard for third-generation mobile communications systems. Referred to as UMTS it is being implemented in Europe from about 2002. Target for mobile data rates of up to 144,000bps and up to 2Mbps for stationary systems. The industry appears to prefer W-CDMA (Wideband CDMA) as the air access. IMT-2000 could provide the basis to integrate satellite, digital cellular, and cordless in a mobile device.
InterNet  A collection of networks and gateways that use TCP/IP protocols (includes ARPAnet, MILnet, NSFnet, and so on).
Intranet  The deployment of Internet technologies within a company or organization. Includes web servers, mail servers limited to the company.
IP  Internet Protocol (see TCP/IP below).
IRTF  Internet Research Task Force, tasked to consider the long-term research problems in the Internet.
ISDN  Integrated Services Digital Network; a limited set of standard interfaces to a digital communications network as defined by CCITT.
ISO  International Organization for Standardization.
ISP  Internet Service Provider.
ITU  International Telecommunication Union; international telecommunications standards body that also brings about radio spectrum allocation treaties.
Kbps  Thousand of bits per second, a measure for data transmission rate.
LAN  Local Area Network; a network limited typically to a few miles used for high speed (2 to 100Mbs) computer connections.
LDAP  Lightweight Directory Access Protocol uses a subset of the X.500 directory standard for clients to identify network resources, especially for the Internet.
MDA  Mobile Data Association
MexE  Mobile Station Application Execution Environment.
MP  Also referred to as MPPP and MLPPP, a protocol providing data compression, error control, and multiple transmission protocol handling. Supersedes PPP and SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol).
NAT  Used by some firewalls and routers to provide a secure proxy interface to the Internet. Stands for Network Address Translation and maps internal IP addresses to legitimate Internet addresses (many-to-one or one-to-one).
OSI  Open Systems Interconnection reference model divides network functions into seven layers, each layer dependent and building on the services of the layer beneath it.
Packet Network  A model where the user is charged per packet (objects are broken up into packets that are routed to their target destination). The end-user connection is constantly open. Availability on digital cellular networks is targeted for 1999.
PAD  Packet Assembler and Disassembler converts data into packets and vice versa.
PAMD  Public Access Mobile Data; generic term for packet data networks.
PAMR  Public Access Mobile Radio.
PANS  Pretty Amazing New Services; refers to new third generation systems; contrast with POTS.
PCN  Personal Communications Network; digital telephony standard based on a subset of GSM1800.
PCS  Personal Communications Service; a term for systems that use GSM1800 and GSM1900, especially in the U.S.
PDA  Personal Digital Assistant.
PMR  Private Mobile Radio a private analog radio network used by emergency services where digital does not (yet) prevail (such as the U.S.). Also termed SMR or Special Mobile Radio.
POTS  Plain Old Telephone System refers to "old iron" telephone networks; contrast with PANS!.
Protocol  In the networking context, a set of rules for controlling data flow.
PSTN  Public Switched Telephone Network; the public telephone system.
PTT  Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone.
Roaming  An agreement for a mobile device to use a network other than the one it initially contracted with. Complicated by revenue sharing and billing issues. Global roaming facilitated by GSM.
SCN  Switched Circuit Networks, such as PSTN/ISDN and GSM.
Satellite  Analog and digital services available to support mobile.
SERG  Services Expert Rapporteur Group of the GSM association is tasked to drive the rapid, yet common, development of GSM functionality and services within ETSI, ensuring the short and medium-term viability of the GSM platform.
SGML  Standard Generalized Markup Language (ISO 8879).
SIG  Special Interest Group.
SIM  Subscriber Identity Module; a computer chip on a plastic card permanently inserted into a device containing a profile of the subscriber for billing, and so on. Could evolve to a credit card format allowing insertion into any device.
SMG  ETSI Special Mobile Group.
SMS  Short Message Service; a GSM facility for sending up to 160-character messages between compatible devices. Often used for alerts on cellular phones (voice message waiting, and so on).
Spoofing  Extremely fast dial-up routines used to simulate a constantly open connection on a circuit switched network. The speed of establishing the connection makes it appear that the connection was never interrupted.
TCP/IP  Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is the standard used by the Internet to transfer information between computers. Data is divided into separate packets that can be reassembled.
TDMA  Time Division Multiple Access; an air protocol developed for handling multiple channels of voice traffic on one cellular frequency. GSM uses TDMA. Also in the U.S. the IS-54 (800 MHz) and IS-136 (800 and 1900 MHz) digital cellular standards.
TETRA  Terrestrial Trunked Radio Access; a digital standard embracing private and public access mobile radio for packet voice and data.
TIA  Telecommunications Industry Association.
TIPHON  ETSI Project TIPHON; Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonization Over Networks.
TLA  Three Letter Acronym.
TTFN  Ta-Ta For Now.
TTML  A subset of HTML; Nokia's protocol for presenting information accessed from the Internet on GSM phones.
URL  Universal Resource Locator (aka the human-friendly www web address used to address an Internet site).
UMTS  Universal Mobile Telephony Standard; European version of IMT-2000.
UMTS  Forum Non-profit organization to develop UMTS made up of IT and telecommunications companies. Has over 100 members.
UWCC  Universal Wireless Communications Consortium; carriers and vendors that support TDMA IS-54/136 radio access and IS-41 core standard.
W3C  World Wide Web Consortium.
WAN  Wide Area Network.
WAP  Wireless Applications Protocol to bring Internet content to mobile devices. Championed by Motorola, Nokia, Unwired Planet (as was, now phone.com), and so on. Uses WML.
WAP Forum  Wireless Applications Protocol Forum.
WDF  Wireless Data Forum.
W-CDMA  Wideband CDMA, radio access standard proposed for UMTS services.
WML  Wireless Markup Language.
WRT  With Respect To.
XML  eXtensible Markup Language describes a class of data objects called XML documents which are stored on computers, and partially describes the behavior of programs which process these objects. XML is an application profile or restricted form of SGML.
X.25  Packet-switched data network communications standard.
X.28  Asynchronous character communications standard used for access to X.25 networks.