19. Glossary

Call forwarding

See Follow Me below.

Call pick-up

Call pick-up is a feature used in a telephone system that allows one to answer someone else’s telephone call. The “call pick-up” feature is accessed by pressing a preprogrammed button (usually labelled "Pick-Up"), or by pressing a special sequence of buttons on the telephone set

Call transfer

A call transfer is a telecommunications mechanism that enables a user to relocate an existing call to another telephone or attendant console by using the transfer button and dialing the required location. The transferred call is either announced or unannounced.

Call waiting

Call waiting (or catch phone in Japan), in telephony, is a feature on some telephone networks. If a calling party places a call to a called party which is otherwise engaged, and the called party has the call waiting feature enabled, the called party is able to suspend the current telephone call and switch to the new incoming call (Typically, this is done by pushing the flash button), and can then negotiate with the new or the current caller an appropriate time to ring back if the message is important, or to quickly handle a separate incoming call.

DDI

See DID below.

DID

Direct Inward Dialling (DID), also called Direct Dial-In (DDI) in Europe, is a feature offered by telephone companies for use with their customers' PBX systems, whereby the telephone company (telco) allocates a range of numbers all connected to their customer's PBX. As calls are presented to the PBX, the number that the caller dialled is also given, so the PBX can route the call to the desired person or bureau within the organization.

Follow Me

Follow Me (call forwarding or call diverting), in telephony, is a feature on some telephone networks that allows an incoming call to a called party, which would be otherwise unavailable, to be redirected to a mobile telephone or other telephone number where the desired called party is situated. Up to 4 numbers can be added in Follow Me option for call forwarding.

Hosted PBX

A hosted PBX system delivers PBX functionality as a service, available over the Public Service Telephone Network (PSTN) and/or the internet. Hosted PBXs are typically provided by the telephone company, using equipment located in the premises of the telephone company's exchange. This means the customer organization doesn't need to buy or install PBX equipment (generally the service is provided by a lease agreement) and the telephone company can (in some configurations) use the same switching equipment to service multiple PBX hosting accounts.

Instead of buying PBX equipment, users contract for PBX services from a hosted PBX service provider, a particular type of Application Service Provider (ASP). The first hosted PBX service was very feature-rich compared to most premise-based systems of the time. In fact, some PBX functions, such as follow-me calling, appeared in a hosted service before they became available in hardware PBX equipment. Since that introduction, updates and new offerings from several companies have moved feature sets in both directions. Today, it is possible to get hosted PBX service that includes far more features than were available from the first systems of this class, or to contract with companies that provide less functionality for more simple needs.

IVR

In telephony, interactive voice response, or IVR, is a phone technology that allows a computer to detect voice and touch tones using a normal phone call. The IVR system can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further direct callers on how to proceed. IVR systems can be used to control almost any function where the interface can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices. Once constructed IVR systems generally scale well to handle large call volumes.

Music on Hold

Music on hold (MOH) refers to the business practice of playing recorded music to fill the silence that would be heard by telephone callers who have been placed on hold. It is especially common in situations involving customer service.

PSTN

The public switched telephone network (PSTN) is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the world's public IP-based packet-switched networks.

Queue (ACD)

Call centers use an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) Queues to distribute incoming calls to specific resources (agents) in the center. Queue hold queued calls in First In, First Out order until agents become available. When an agent becomes available, the highest-ranked caller in the queue is delivered to that agent, and everyone else moves up a rank.

SIP

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signalling protocol, widely used for setting up and tearing down multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over the Internet. Other feasible application examples include video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information and online games.

SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, IPA: /vɔɪp/) is a protocol optimized for the transmission of voice through the Internet or other packet switched networks. VoIP is often used abstractly to refer to the actual transmission of voice (rather than the protocol implementing it). This latter concept is also referred to as IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband, broadband telephony, and broadband phone.