Glossary.
| B C D G H I K M N O P R S T U V W | |
| B | |
| Bandwidth | Denotes the width of the frequency band used to transmit data. The broader the bandwidth, the faster the connection. |
| Blog | Blog, short for web log, an online diary written on a computer and posted on the World Wide Web. |
| C | |
| Call-by-Call (selection of a telephone company) | Dialing procedure that enables a telephone customer to use the carrier (long-distance operator) of his or her choice for long-distance and international calls (i.e., the customer can change carriers for each call). |
| Carry Trade | In a carry trade, a loan is taken out in a country with low shortterm interest rates and invested in longer-term financial instruments in countries with higher interest rates.. |
| Co-location room | Co-location rooms are used for housing and operating technical equipment of telecommunications operators. A co-location room is a separate room within a switching center that can be used by Deutsche Telekom’s competitors. |
| Customer centricity | Comprehensive customer orientation – i.e., gearing actions to customers and their various needs when designing products and developing services, and also in sales, public relations and all market communications. The opposite would be product centricity, where a company focuses primarily on its products. |
| D | |
| Desktop services | Global desktop services involve a variety of support services, including the outsourcing of entire IT networks. In this context Deutsche Telekom offers a full portfolio of corporate IT services, from server infrastructure and PC workstations through to application management and call center services that provide user support. |
| Downstream | Data transmission from the Internet server to the user’s PC. The transmission of data in the opposite direction is referred to as upstream. |
| DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) | Offered under the name of T-DSL in Deutsche Telekom’s service portfolio. – ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) – Technology used to transmit data at fast rates (between 16 kbit/s and 640 kbit/s upstream; up to 8 Mbit/s downstream) via standard copper wire pairs to connections within a radius of approximately three kilometers. – ADSL2+ – Successor product to ADSL that raises the maximum data rate to 16 Mbit/s (downstream) or 1 Mbit/s (upstream). – VDSL (Very high bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) is a new technology used to transmit exceptionally high data rates (5 Mbit/s upstream, 50 Mbit/s downstream) via a fiber-optic network. (Upstream denotes the direction of transmission from the user to the server, while downstream denotes the opposite direction). |
| DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial.) | International transmission standard for digital terrestrial television. |
| G | |
| GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) | Technology allowing higher data transmission rates in GSM networks. |
| GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) | Pan-European digital mobile communication standard in the 900 MHz frequency range. |
| H | |
| HDTV (High Definition Television) | Generic term that describes a range of television standards that differ from conventional television through increased vertical, horizontal and/or temporal resolution. |
| HotSpot | HotSpot is the name of a public area where customers can access the Internet using wireless local area networks (WLAN). The HotSpots are realized jointly by T-Com and T-Mobile. |
| HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) | Packet-based protocol that enhances data rates in UMTS networks and lifts transmission speeds into the megabit range. |
| I | |
| ICT (Information and Communication Technology) | Information and Communication Technology. |
| Interconnection | Term used to denote the connections between networks run by various providers, as regulated by the German Telecommunications Act. |
| Internet/intranet | The Internet is a worldwide Internet Protocol (IP)-based computer network that has no central network management. By contrast, intranets are managed IP networks that can be accessed only by specific user groups. |
| IP (Internet Protocol) | Non-proprietary transport protocol in layer 3 of the OSI reference model for inter-network communications. |
| IP address | Each computer that is connected to the Internet has a clearly identifiable, numeric address, the IP address, comprising four sequences of digits that are separated by periods, e.g.: 217.247.84.89 (example: T-Online). Static IP addresses enable the same computer to be contacted under the same address at any time (e.g., by a web server). Dynamic IP addresses are allocated for instance to T-Online customers dialing up to the Internet. They receive an unoccupied IP address which will not be the same every time. |
| IPTV (Internet Protocol Television.) | A system where a digital television service is delivered using the Internet Protocol. |
| ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) | Offered under the name of T-ISDN in Deutsche Telekom’s portfolio. ISDN integrates telecommunications services such as telephone, fax and data communication in one single network. Contrary to the standard analog transmission system, ISDN digitizes the data, which improves transmission quality, enhances transmission speed, and enables packet-switched transmission. |
| ISP (Internet Service Provider) | An Internet service provider offers various technical services that are required to use or operate Internet services, usually in return for a fee. |
| K | |
| kbit (Kilobit) | Unit of data transmission speed. 1 024 bit = 1 kbit; 1,024 kbit = 1 Mbit. |
| M | |
| Mbit/s (Megabits per second.) | Unit of data transmission speed. |
| MMS | The Short Message Service (SMS) is a telecommunications service for the transmission of text messages. It was initially developed for GSM mobile communications and is now also available in the fixed network. The further development of SMS is the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) which allows the transmission of various media such as text, images, animations, video and audio clips in a single message. SMS, and MMS in particular, refer not only to the services, but also to the messages themselves. |
| Multimedia | Term used to denote the real-time integration of text with still images and graphics, video, and sound. |
| MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) | Mobile Virtual Network Operator: An MVNO appears to the customer to be a conventional mobile communications operator, the difference being, however, that an MVNO does not operate a network of its own. Instead, an MVNO simply purchases blocks of minutes and data transmission capacity from network operators and then bundles them as products for sale to consumers. |
| N | |
| NGN (Next Generation Network) | In the traditional architecture of modern telephone networks, voice and data transmissions are routed via different technical platforms. The aim of a next generation network is to combine both functions to provide integrated voice-data services. NGNs are based entirely on IP technology.. |
| O | |
| Optical fiber | Channel for optical data transmission. |
| P | |
| PAL | A color-encoding system used in television broadcasting in large parts of the world. |
| Prepaid | In contrast to postpaid contracts, prepaid communication services are services for which credit has been purchased in advance with no fixed-term contract obligations. |
| Preselection | Preselection of a telephone company. Procedure in which the customer selects a certain provider – known as the long-distance carrier – for all of his or her long-distance and international calls. |
| Preselection of a telephone company | A procedure where customers select a certain provider – known as a long-distance carrier – for all of their long-distance and international calls. |
| PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network.) | Term generally used by the International Telecommunication Union for circuit-switched analog telephone networks that allow digital data to be transmitted via modem. |
| R | |
| Resale | Resale of products to competitors (see also: wholesale). |
| Roaming | A feature of cellular mobile communications networks. Activated mobile stations remain accessible, regardless of location, in all radio cells of the entire area served by the network. Roaming can also include similar networks of different network operators, as is the case with international roaming in the pan-European GSM system. |
| S | |
| SIM card (Subscriber Identification Module card.) | Chip card that is inserted into a cell phone and which contains all the data of the subscriber. |
| SMS | The Short Message Service (SMS) is a telecommunications service for the transmission of text messages. It was initially developed for GSM mobile communications and is now also available in the fixed network. The further development of SMS is the Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) which allows the transmission of various media such as text, images, animations, video and audio clips in a single message. SMS, and MMS in particular, refer not only to the services, but also to the messages themselves. |
| Stakeholder | The stakeholder approach is an extension of the shareholder value approach used extensively in business management. In contrast to the shareholder value principle, which focuses on the needs and expectations of a company’s shareholders, the stakeholder approach attempts to appreciate the company against its overall social background and reconcile the needs of the different stakeholders. In addition to shareholders, stakeholders include staff, customers, suppliers, the government, and the public at large. |
| T | |
| T-Net | Deutsche Telekom’s digitized telephone network. |
| Triple Play | Refers to the interaction between voice and data communication and interactive media. |
| U | |
| UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications) | Third-generation international mobile communications standard that unites mobile multimedia and telematics services in the frequency spectrum of 2 GHz. |
| UMTS TDD (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) | TDD is the second variant of the UMTS standard besides FDD (Frequency Division Duplex). With TDD both uplink and downlink communication share the same frequency within a TDD-specific spectrum. By contrast, FDD always requires two paired frequency carrier waves for uplink and downlink communication. |
| V | |
| VDSL (Very high bit rate Digital Subscriber Line) | New technology used to transmit exceptionally high data rates via a fiber-optic network. |
| VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) | Technology used to make telephone calls via the Internet. Three methods are available: PC to PC, PC to fixed-network lines, and telephone calls via IP-based internal networks. |
| W | |
| W-LAN (Wireless Local Area Network) | Wireless networks for mobile Internet access. The network can also connect multiple computers to each other or to a central information system, a printer, or a scanner. |
| Wholesale | The business of selling services to third parties who in turn sell them to their own end customers either directly or after further processing (see also: resale). |
