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Glossary of Terms

ACD Automatic Call Distribution

An automated system for answering, queuing and distributing incoming calls to a number of agents. Popular in Call Centres, ACD systems also provide call processing statistics, such as the number of calls waiting, average length of call queue, etc, which can be incorporated into historical reports or displayed in real time on wall boards or displayed on a web based interface.

ADSL

Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (DSL / SDSL) Variants of a technology to utilise the existing copper local loop network, primarily for Internet and data services. Because data can be transferred at a different frequency to voice traffic, existing copper pairs (telephone line) can be used to carry larger amounts of information. The voice signal is carried within the data signal and is then broken out of the data signal at the local BT or other operator’s exchange and then carried as normal across the voice network. DSL technology is designed for “always on” connection to the Internet or in rare cases for very large corporate wide area networks.

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode A transmission and switching technique capable of supporting voice, video and data (multimedia) communications. It is unique in that each piece of information is addressed and is of the same length. This allows very high speed communications.

Auto Attendant

An automated call answering system that uses prompts to direct users to the correct department or extension, e.g. “For support please press 1 Now”.