Glossary of Telecoms Technology Terms
1G - First Generation
1xEV-DO - 1x Evolution-Data Only
2.5G - Generation 2.5
2G - Second Generation
3G - Third Generation
3GPP - Third Generation Partnership Project
4G - Fourth Generation
5G - Fifth Generation
5GSA - 5G Non-Standalone (NSA)
5G Backhaul
5G Beamforming
5G Core Architecture
5G Fronthaul
5G IoT - 5G Internet of Things
5G Latency
5G Network Slicing
5G NR - 5G New Radio
5G Private Network - Private 5G Network
5G Spectral Efficiency
5G Small Cells
5G Fixed Mobile Convergence
5G FWA - 5G Fixed Wireless Access
5G NR SA - 5G New Radio Standalone
64 - QAM 64-state Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
AAS - Active Antenna System
AGCH - Access Grant Channel
AI in Telecoms - Artificial Intelligence in Telecoms
AN - Access Network
ANDSF - Access Network Selection and Discovery Function
ANR - Automatic Neighbour Relations
AP - Access Point
API - Application Programming Interface
APN - Access Point Name
ARFCN - Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number
ARIB - Association of Radio Industries and Businesses
AS - Application Server
ASN - Access Service Network
ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode
AuC - Authentication Centre
BBU - Baseband Unit
BCCH - Broadcast Control Channel
BCH - Broadcast Channel
BG - Border Gateway
B-ISDN - Broadband ISDN
BS - Base Station
BSC - Base Station Controller
BSS - Base Station System
BSSAP - Base Station Subsystem Application Part
BTS - Base Transceiver Station
BWA - Broadband Wireless Access
CA - Carrier Aggregation in LTE
C-Band
CBCH - Cell Broadcast Channel
CBS - Cell Broadcast Service
CC - Component Carrier
CC - Country Code
CCCH - Common Control Channel
CCH - Control Channel
CCO - Coverage and Capacity Optimization
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access
CDMA2000 - American CDMA system based on cdmaOne™
CGF - Charging Gateway Function
CGI - Cell Global Identifier
Cloud-Native 5G
C-RAN - Cloud RAN
CN - Core Network
CoMP - Coordinated Multi Point
CP - Cyclic Prefix
CPE - Customer Premises Equipment
CS - Circuit Switched
CSFB - Circuit Switched Fall Back
CSN - Connectivity Service Network
D2D - Device to Device
D-AMPS - Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System
dB - decibel
dBc - decibels relative to the carrier
dBD - Gain in dB relative to a dipole antenna
dBi - Gain in dB in respect of an isotropic radiator
dBm - decibel in respect of 1 mW
dBW - decibel Watt
dBV - decibel Volt
DCCH - Dedicated Control Channel
DCS - Digital Cellular Services
DECT - Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications
Disaggregated RAN
DMO - Direct Mode Operation
DMT - Discrete Multitone
BSS in 5G - Dynamic spectrum sharing
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
DVB - Digital Video Broadcasting
EARFCN - EUTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number
EC-GSM-IoT - Extended Coverage GSM Internet of Things
EDGE - Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution
EDGE Cloud
Edge Computing in Telecom
E-GSM - Extended-GSM
EHF - Extra High Frequency
eICIC - Enhanced Inter Cell Interference Coordination
EIR - Equipment Identity Register
EM - Electromagnetic
eMBMS - Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service
eMTC - Enhanced Machine Type Communications
eNB - EUTRA Node B
EPC - Evolved Packed Core
E-RAB - E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer
ERMES - European Radio Message System
ERTMS - European Railway Traffic Management System
ERTCS - European Train Control System
eCPRI - enhanced Common Public Radio Interface
ESM - Energy Saving Management
eSIM
ETSI - European Telecommunications Standards Institute
EUTRA - Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access
EVDO - Evolution Data Optimized
FACCH - Fast Associated Control Channel
FCCH - Frequency Correction Control Channel
FDD - Frequency Division Duplex
FDM - Frequency Division Multiplexing
FDMA - Frequency Division Multiple Access
FEC - Forward Error Correction
FTTP - Fibre To The Premises
FRMCS - Future Railway Mobile Communications System
GCSE - Group Communication Service Enablers
GERAN - GSM EDGE Radio Access Network
GGSN - Gateway GPRS Support Node
GMM - GPRS Mobility Management
GMSC - Gateway MSC
GMSK - Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying
gNodeB - gNode Base Station
GPRS - General Packet Radio Service
GSM - Global System for Mobile Communications
GSM-R - GSM for Railway
HCR - High Chip Rate
HeNB - Home eNodeB
HetNet - Heterogeneous Network
HF - High Frequency
HLR - Home Location Register
HSDPA - High Speed Downlink Packet Access
HSPA - High Speed Packet Access
HSS - Home Subscriber Server
HSUPA - High Speed Uplink Packet Access
ICIC - Inter Cell Interference Coordination
IDEN - Integrated Digital Enhanced Network
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force
IFOM - IP Flow Mobility
IMEI - International Mobile Equipment Identity
IMEISV - IMEI Software Version
IMS - IP Media Subsystem
IMSI - International Mobile Subscriber Identity
IMT-2000 - International Mobile Telephony 2000
IMT-Advanced - International Mobile Telephony - Advanced
Industrial 5G
IoT - Internet of Things
IP - Internet Protocol
ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
ISIM - IMS SIM
ISM - Industrial Scientific and Medical
ISR - Idle mode Signalling Reduction
ITU - International Telecommunications Union
ITU-T - ITU - Telecommunication Standardization Sector
Kc - Cipher key
KcGPRS - Cipher key GPRS
LAA - Licensed Assisted Access
LAC - Location Area Code
LAI - Location Area Identity
LBT - Listen Before Talk
LCR - Low Chip Rate
LF - Low Frequency
LIPA - Local IP Access
LOS - Line of Sight
LTE - Long Term Evolution
LTE-A - LTE Advanced
LTE-U - LTE Unlicensed
LUREQ - Location Update Request
M2M - Machine to Machine
MAC - Medium Access Control
Massive IoT - Massive Internet of Things
MAHO - Mobile Assisted Handover
MAP - Mobile Application Part
MAPCON - Multi-Access PDN Connectivity
MBMS - Multimedia Broadcast Multi Service
MBS - Multimedia and Broadcast Service
MCC - Mobile Country Code
MCM - Multi-Carrier Modulation
MCPTT - Mission Critical Push To Talk
MDT - Minimization of Drive Tests
MEC - Mobile Edge Computing
Multi-Layer Security in 5G
Multi-Tenant Edge Computing
MEC Architecture
ME - Mobile Equipment
MF - Medium Frequency
MG - Media Gateway
MGC - Media Gateway Controller
MGCP - Media Gateway Control Protocol
MGW - Media Gateway
MGW/MGw - Media Gateway
Massive MIMO - Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output
MLB - Mobility Load Balancing
mmWave - millimeter wave
MME Mobility Management Entity
MMI - Man Machine Interface
MNC - Mobile Network Code
MO - Mobile Originated
MPLS - Multi Protocol Label Switching
MPLS VPN - Multiprotocol Label Switching Virtual Private Network
MS - Mobile Station
MSC - Mobile-services Switching Centre
MSIN - Mobile Subscriber Identification Number
MSISDN - Mobile Subscriber ISDN
MSRN - Mobile Station Roaming Number
MT - Mobile Terminated
MTC - Machine Type Communications
N - Normal
NAP - Network Access Provider
NB-IoT - Narrow Band Internet of Things
NCH - Notification Channel
NDC - National Destination Code
NFC - Near Field Communication
NFV - Network Functions Virtualisation
NFV MANO - Network Function Virtualization Management and Orchestration
NGMN - Next Generation Mobile Network
NLOS - Non-Line of Sight
NRM - Network Reference Model
NrF -Next-Generation Node (NGN) Repository Function (NRF)
NSAPI - Network Service Access Point Identifier
NSP - Network Service Provider
NSS - Network Switching System
OFDM - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
OFDMA - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access
ONAP - Open Network Automation Platform
OTT - Over The Top
O-RAN - Open RAN
PAMR - Public Access Mobile Radio
PCH - Paging Channel
PCM - Pulse Code Modulation
PCRF - Policy and Charging Resource Function
PCS - Personal Cellular Services
PCU - Packet Control Unit
PDC - Personal Digital Cellular
PDCH - Packet Data Channel
PDCP - Packet Data Convergence Protocol
PDN - Public Data Network
PDN-GW - PDN Gateway
PDP - Packet Data Protocol
P-GSM - Primary-GSM
PHS - Packet Header Suppression
PLMN - Public Land Mobile Network
PMP - Point to Multipoint
PMR - Professional Mobile Radio
PoC - Push-to-talk over Cellular
ProSE - Proximity Services
PS - Packet Switched
PSM - Power Saving Mode
PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network
P-TMSI - Packet TMSI
PtP - Point to Point
QAM - Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QoE - Quality of Experience
QoS - Quality of Service
QPSK - Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
R4 - Release 4
RA - Routing Area
RACH - Random Access Channel
RAN - Radio Access Network
RAT - Radio Access Technology
RB - Radio Bearer
RF - Radio Frequency
RFID - Radio Frequency Identification
R-GSM - Railway-GSM
RLC - Radio Link Control
RNC - Radio Network Controller
RNS - Radio Network Subsystem
RRC - Radio Resource Control
RRM - Radio Resource Management
SACCH - Slow Associated Control Channel
SC-FDMA - Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SCH - Synchronization Channel
SCTP - Stream Control Transmission Protocol
SEPP - Service Enablement Platform
SDCCH - Stand-alone Dedicated Control Channel
SDN - Software Defined Networking
SFN - Single Frequency Network
SGSN - Serving GPRS Support Node
SGW - Signalling Gateway
S-GW - Serving Gateway
SHF - Super High Frequency
SIM - Subscriber Identity Module
SIPTO - Selected IP Traffic Offload
SMS - Short Message Service
SMSC - Short Message Service Centre
SN - Subscriber Number
SNR - Signal to Noise Ratio
SON - Self Organizing Network
SRNC - Serving Radio Network Controller
SS - Supplementary Services
SS7 - Signalling System No 7
SSID - Service Set Identifier
SwMI - Switching and Management Infrastructure
TA - Tracking Area
TAC - Type Approval Code
TCH - Traffic Channel
TD-CDMA - Time Division CDMA
TDD - Time Division Duplex
TDMA - Time Division Multiple Access
TD-SCDMA - Time Division Synchronous CDMA
TETRA - Terrestrial Trunked Radio
T-GSM - Trunked GSM
TMSI - Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity
TRAU - Transcoder and Rate Adaptation Unit
UE - User Equipment
URLLC - Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication
UHF - Ultra High Frequency
UMB - Ultra Mobile Broadband
UMTS - Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
UNB - Ultra Narrow Band
USIM - Universal SIM
UTRA - UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access
UTRAN - Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network
V2V - Vehicle to Vehicle
V2X - Vehicle to Everything
VAS - Value Added Service
VGS - Voice Group Service
VHF - Very High Frequency
VLF - Very Low Frequency
VLR - Visitor Location Register
VoD - Video on Demand
VoIP - Voice over IP
VoLTE - Voice over LTE
vRAN in 5G - Virtualized Radio Access Network in 5G
VoNR - Voice over New Radio
WCDMA - Wideband CDMA
WiMAX - Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
WLL - Wireless Local Loop
WRC - World Radiocommunications Conference