Glossary - ATCOM IPPBX IP4G Product Manual

Glossary

Zaptel: Zaptel refers to Jim Dixon's open computer telephony hardware driver API. Zaptel drivers
were first released for BSD and Jim's Tormenta series of DIY T1 interface cards. Digium later
produced interface cards from Jim's designs and improved the Zaptel drivers on the Linux
platform. Digium then added further drivers also following the Zaptel API for other telephony
hardware.
Asterisk: Asterisk is a software implementation of a telephone private branch exchange (PBX)
originally created in 1999 by Mark Spencer of Digium. Like any PBX, it allows attached
telephones to make calls to one another, and to connect to other telephone services including the
public switched telephone network (PSTN) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.
Voice Codec:
G.711 is a high bit rate (64 Kbps) ITU standard codec. It is the native language of the modern
digital telephone network. There are two versions: A-law and U-law.
G.711 A-law is indigenous to the E1 standard used in the rest of the world. G.711 U-law is
indigenous to the T1 standard used in North America and Japan. The difference is in the method
the analog signal being sampled. In both schemes, the signal is not sampled linearly, but in a
logarithmic fashion. A-law provides more dynamic range as opposed to U-law. The result is a less
'fuzzy' sound as sampling artifacts are better supressed.
Pick up: the ability to pull a ringing call to the phone you are currently on.
There are two main types:-
a.Group call pickup, this allows you to collect a call from any ringing phone that is in the same
pickup group as you, if there were more than one phone ringing then you would have no control
over which call you collected.
b.Directed pickup, this allows you to pickup a call at a specific extension, maybe you're in another
office and you hear a phone ringing and wonder if it's yours. You dial the pickup number and your
extension, and the call will only transfer if it is your extension.
Group call pickup is typically invoked by dialing *8# or *8 from another phone in the call pickup
group.
Syslog: Syslog is a standard for logging program messages. It allows separation of the software
that generates messages from the system that stores them and the software that reports and
analyzes them. It also provides devices, which would otherwise be unable to communicate, a
means to notify administrators of problems or performance.
Time Zone: A Time Zone is a region on Earth, more or less bounded by lines of longitude, that has
a uniform, legally mandated standard time, usually referred to as the local time.
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