Phone System Terminology 101

Posted on 16. May, 2011 by KrebStar [archives]

If you’ve never used a phone system before and are not familiar with the terminology, here are some of the more basic terms you need to know.  Office telephone systems can seem intimidating at first, but learn the basic terms and you’ll do just fine:

Announced Transfer – An announced transfer passes a call to another phone, but first allows the passer of the call to speak with the receiver of the call, so that they can “announce” the call they want to pass to them.

Auto Attendant – An Auto Attendant is an automatic recording that picks up with a caller dials the main number of the phone system.  Usually this recording walks the caller through a list of extensions, and their matching departments.

Blind Transfer – A blind transfer passes a call to another phone, without announcing it to the receiver of that call beforehand. (Is sends it “blindly”.)

Cabinet – A cabinet is the brains of a traditional phone system.  It usually hangs on the wall within your office and contains the motherboard and all of the programming for the entire system.

Call Forwarding – Call forwarding is a feature that, when programmed into a phone, calls to that phone automatically forward to whatever number has been set.  Usually calls can be forwarded to an extension within the office, or a full 7 digit number outside of the office.

Dedicated Circuit – With VoIP systems, the phone system and the office computers can compete for the same connections or bandwidth.  A dedicated circuit is a connection that is dedicated only for the phones.

Dial Tone – The dial tone is the tone heard when accessing an outside line.  Without a dial tone, service is not reaching the phone.

DID (Direct Inward Dial) – A DID is a full 7-digit phone number assigned to a specific phone within a phone system, for outside callers to reach without having to dial the main phone number and an extension.

Do Not Disturb – Do not disturb is a very common phone system feature, which turns off the phones ringer and sends calls directly to voicemail.

Extension – An extension is a number shorter than a full 7-digit phone number (usually 1 to 3 digits long), that can be used to more quickly dial within a phone system.

Ghost Ring – A ghost ring is a feature allowing one phone to receive its own calls, and also receive calls made to another phone in the office.  Executive Assistants often use ghost rings to help their Executives manage their calls.

Hunt Group – A hunt group is a group of phones that ring simultaneously.  A common hunt group is one which rings after the reception phone rings several times.  This way if the receptionist does not pick up, several others have the chance before the caller ends up in a voicemail.

Hybrid – In the world of phone systems, hybrid phone systems are a combination of traditional phone systems and VoIP phone systems.

HPBX (Hosted Private Branch Exchange) –  Unlike a PBX, an HPBX lives outside of your office, hosted by a company.  The telephones themselves stay in your office, but the brains that control the telephones are “hosted” off site.

PBX (Private Branch Exchange) – A PBX is another term for a traditional telephone system.  It’s a private network set up for an office, which also connects that office to the rest of the world.

Ports – The number of ports your phone system has is equal to the number of concurrent phone calls that can be made on it.  Ports take into account both the number of lines, and the number of extensions.

Lines – Lines are connections between your phone system and the rest of the world.  One line can handle one conversation at a time.

Music on Hold – Music on hold is a phone system feature that plays music for callers while they are on hold.

Speed Dial – A common phone system feature, speed dial allows you to associate a single button with dialing a phone number.  Pressing this single speed dial button will call the number for you.

Trunking – Trunking is a line-sharing technique in which multiple clients share the same set of lines instead of owning them individually.

Transfer – A transfer is the passing of a phone call from one phone to another, usually by using the office extensions.

T1 – A T1 is a type of connection much more powerful than a typical home connection.  It has 24 64Kbps channels, allowing multiple users to talk over a VoIP phone system and connect to the internet.

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) – Unlike traditional phone systems which use plain old telephone system (POTS) lines, VoIP phone systems connect over the internet, using the same lines that your computer uses.

Posted on 16. May, 2011 by KrebStar[archives]