Terms And Conventions Used - AT&T MERLIN LEGEND Release 3.1 System Planning Manual

Terms and Conventions Used

Since this book assumes that you are familiar with the system, detailed
information about equipment, features, and programming are not included.
Refer to the following documentation for additional information:
Equipment and Operations Reference provides detailed information on
system hardware, telephones, and other equipment.
System Programming gives procedural instructions for programming
system features.
User's guides and operator's guides give procedural instructions for
programming and using telephone features.
"Related Documents," later in this section, provides a complete list of system
documentation together with ordering information.
In the U.S.A. only, AT&T provides a toll-free customer Helpline (1-800-628-
2888) 24 hours a day. Call the Helpline, or your AT&T representative, if you
need assistance when installing, programming, or using your system.
Terms and Conventions Used
The terms described here are used in preference to other, equally acceptable
terms for describing communications systems.
Lines, Trunks, and Facilities
Facility is a general term that designates a communications path between a
telephone system and the telephone company central office. Technically a trunk
connects a switch to a switch, for example the MERLIN LEGEND
Communications System to the central office. Technically, a line is a loop-start
facility or a communications path that does not connect two switches, for
example, an intercom line or a Centrex line. However, in actual usage, the terms
line and trunk are often applied interchangeably. In this book, we use line/trunk
and lines/trunks to refer to facilities in general. Specifically, we refer to digital
facilities . We also use terms such as personal line , ground-start trunk , DID trunk ,
and so on. When you talk to your local telephone company central office, ask
them what terms they use for the specific facilities they connect to your system.
Some older terms have been replaced with newer terms. The following list
shows the old term on the left and the new term on the right.
trunk module
trunk jack
station
station jack
analog data station
7500B data station
analog voice and analog data station
digital voice and analog data station
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System Planning
line/trunk module
line/trunk jack
extension
extension jack
modem data station
ISDN terminal adapter data station
analog voice and modem data
MLX voice and modem data