Comprehensive Glossary of Telecom Abbreviations and Acronyms

408 Pages·2007·7.65 MB·English

by  Ali Akbar Arabi

Table of Contents
Preface...................................................................................................... vii
Introduction.............................................................................................. xiii
Acronyms and Abbreviations................................................................... 1
Annex A.................................................................................................... 383
Annex B.................................................................................................... 387

Preface
Abbreviations are the important part of any scientific language of modern
life.Inrecentdecades,allbranchesofsciencehavebeenwidelyexpanded
and many words and terms have been utilized to express their concept.
Many of them are compoundphrases and high-frequencyterms, and if we
use them as they are, our speech and writing becomes very lengthy and
boring. That is why people prefer the short forms (abbreviations) for
frequently used compound phrases.
The main objective of technical abbreviations is to save time and
decrease speech and writing to facilitate engineers’ communication.
The other intention is the explicitness, fluency, and beauty of our speech
and writing. Any method, which can help us to achieve these goals, is
acceptable. Abbreviations contribute to faster writing, reading, speaking,
and better understanding of technical and scientific articles, reports, and
lectures. They can save time and money by reducing the time and cost of
writing, typing, editing, and composition resetting costs. They also reduce
the space required for texts, tables, and diagrams. Therefore, they are very
good tools to enhance any live and dynamic language.
ThewordsoftheEnglishandotherEuropeanlanguagescompriseafew
special characters implying distinct technical meanings, such as l for
wavelength or 4 for phase. In these languages, abbreviations play a
similar role, but each of them implies the meaning of a “phrase” instead
ofa“word.”Thus,theycanbeconsideredastheelementsofthatlanguage
and are treated like the original words. Sometimes, the short form of a
phraseismorecommonthanthatofitsoriginalformbecausetheyarevery
proper and effective tools for communication. In most languages,
especially in English, coining abbreviations is a common practice and
most of the high-frequency compound terms are used in short forms.
For this reason, the abbreviations of a language are considered as “a
language within that language”, and from the socio-linguistic point
viii &
of view, they are comparable with a “dialect.” Therefore, utilization of
abbreviations is inevitable and it is a wise decision to take action for their
standardization.
Without standard rules and principles, there will be many debates
and discussions about writing style, when engineers are writing
their manuscripts. To avoid these debates, it is recommended that
writing principles and rules are formulated and standardized. With this
in mind, I have followed the principles and rules adopted by John
Markus, the composer of “Electronics Dictionary” as described in the
fourth edition and recommend them to be standardized for international
application.
This book is entitled as “Comprehensive Glossary of Telecom
Abbreviations”, but since each branch of science listed below are
somehow interrelated and intermingled with telecommunications engin-
eering, I have also included the abbreviations of those branches. The
abbreviations listed in this work have been compiled over years from
intensive study of various resources. A glossary of abbreviations is a
growing work and will never be perfect and fully comprehensive.
Despite this, I have tried all my best to include a collection of over
16,200 entries from almost all the fields of telecommunications, satellite
communications, electronics, computer, Internet, broadcasting, fiber
optics, information technology (IT), ICT, live Internet chat, e-learning,
e-commerce, remote sensing, cellular networks, avionics, Ham radio,
radar, and military communications terms to satisfy the needs of
engineers, technical writers, technicians, and university students.
Particular attention is paid to the abbreviations used in ITU, IMO,
Intelsat, Inmarsat, and APSCC documents. Telecommunication magazines
are not forgotten and many titles and volumes have been searched. You
may also find many abbreviations used in contracts and financial
documents. The most famous telecom companies and operators are
included. A larger number of abbreviations made and used by the
specialized institutions and standard organizations such as IEEE, ETSI,
IETF, and ISO are also included. New technologies and systems such as
ISDN, ATM, TMN, SONET, SDH, DECT, and Bluetooth are of special
importance in this glossary.
All entries are listed in alphabetical order. Where two or more entries
differ only in capitalization or punctuation, the forms comprised of
uppercased (capital) letters will follow the lowercased forms, and
those having dots, slashes, or spaces precede the capital forms. Entries
commencing with numbers are collected before all others. Where more
than one phrase stand for a given abbreviation, both or all phrases are
mentioned and marked by numbers. Entries of Greek symbols or letters
are also alphabetized as if they were spelt out. Following the phrases,
the relevant field of each entry has also been shown in parentheses or
& ix
brackets to clarify or limit the usage field. If an entry does not fall into a
specific category, the name of the company which coined that abbrevi-
ation is mentioned in parentheses.
Ali Akbar Arabi