Whether your business is just considering the use of a cloud based phone service or you have been using one for years, but don’t know much about the terms that your service provider mentions, Vaspian is here to help clear things up. There is a lot of jargon, and many abbreviations, associated with the VoIP industry and the services it provides, some of the most important of which we have described below.
Bandwidth
A term you’ve probably heard many times when discussing different aspects of the Internet, bandwidth is the volume of data that can be carried over your particular connection at any given time. Without a fast enough bandwidth, delays, jumbled speech and dropped calls can occur.
Latency
When dealing with VoIP, latency is a word used to describe the amount of time it takes for the data packets that make up your voice to be transmitted from the speaker to the listener on the other end of the line. It is typically a negative effect that comes along with having too slow a bandwidth.
Private Branch Exchange (PBX)
Often referred to as PBX, Private Branch Exchange connects your internal phone system to the outside telephone network. Your PBX allows for multiple extensions, as well as lines for fax machines and phones with internal-use-only features.
Softphone
Softphone is a software program or application that allows VoIP users to make and receive phone calls through their desktop computer, laptop or smartphone. All that is needed is an internet connection and a headset or specially designed phone.
VoIP
Described more in depth in our recent articles, “What is VoIP?” and “A Brief History of Everything VoIP”, this term stands for the phrase Voice Over Internet Protocol. In short, this means that VoIP is used to transfer voice signals between IP addresses in the form of data packets. These packets are transmitted from one IP to the other, reconnecting with each other to form the sound of the caller’s voice.
To learn more about VoIP phone service and how it can be used to help your business grow, please call Vaspian’s Buffalo, New York office at 1-855-827-7426.
Source: https://www.voipreview.org/blog/ditching-jargon-basic-voip-terms-understand-beginners/
