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Acronyms & Definitions

Here is a list of terms/acronyms and their definitions. We hope this information helps in your understanding of visp.net and our industry.
ISP Industry Acronyms A-E | ISP Industry Acronyms F-O | ISP Industry Acronyms P-Z | visp.net Specific Acronyms
Acronyms & Definitions P-Z
Packet, a formatted block of information carried by a computer network.
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Pair Gain, a method of transmitting multiple POTS signals over the twisted pairs traditionally used for a single traditional subscriber line in telephone systems.
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PBX (Private Branch eXchange), also called Private Business eXchange or PABX for Private Automatic Branch eXchange, is a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office, as opposed to a common carrier or telephone company operates for many businesses or for the general public.
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PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation), a digital representation of an analog signal where the magnitude of the signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, then quantized to a series of symbols in a digital (usually binary) code.
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Peering point, a major public or private 'nerve center' where multiple high bandwidth networks interconnect and route information.
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Perl, a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987.
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Permission, authorizes a user to only one network. If a user would like to dial-in to another network, his or her permissions must be changed.
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Phishing, a criminal activity using social engineering techniques.
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PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), a reflective programming language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages.
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Ping, a computer network tool used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an IP network.
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PLC (Power Line Communication), using electric power lines to carry radio signals for communication purposes.
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POI (Point Of Interface), is used to show the physical interface between two different carriers, such as a local exchange carrier (LEC) and a wireless carrier or a LEC and a IntereXchange Carrier (IXC).
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POP (Point-Of-Presence), an artificial demarcation point or interface point between communications entities.
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POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3), an application-layer Internet standard protocol, to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection.
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Port, a location on the DSLAM where wiring for each DSL line is connected. There is a one-to-one relationship between ports and DSL lines.
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Portal, a single point of access to information which is from various logically linked internet based applications and is of interest to various type of users.
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Port Change, the monthly fee for a connection to a network, usually for at Internet at large.
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POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), a term which describes the voice-grade telephone service that remains the basic form of residential and small business service connection to the telephone network in most parts of the world.
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PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol), commonly used to establish a direct connection between two nodes.
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PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet), a network protocol for encapsulating PPP frames in Ethernet frames.
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PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), a method for implementing virtual private networks.
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PRI (Primary Rate Interface), a telecommunications standard for carrying multiple DS0 voice and data transmissions between two physical locations.
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Primary name server, the main Domain Name System (DNS) server that translates alphabetic domain names into numeric IP addresses.
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Process Quota, the number of processes that can be simultaneously run by a user on a server. This number is based on the Service Level Agreement.
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Property, a set of predefined configuration settings for a data group.
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Protect Directories, a WEBppliance option that allows you to limit access to Web pages and data that resides on your server by using password protection.
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Protocol, a communications protocol is the set of standard rules for data representation, signalling, authentication and error detection required to send information over a communications channel.
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PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks, in much the same way that the Internet is the network of the world's public IP-based packet-switched networks.
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PTR record, or pointer record maps, is an IPv4 address to the canonical name for that host.
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PTT (Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone), a government agency responsible for postal mail, telegraph, and telephone services in many countries worldwide other than North America and Japan.
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PUP (PARC Universal Packet), one of the two earliest internetwork protocol suites.
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PUP Charge, a charge incurred by an ISP if a user exceeds a designated amount of time online.
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PVC (Permanent Virtual Circuit), a virtual circuit established for repeated use between the same data terminal equipments (DTE).
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QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation), a modulation scheme which conveys data by changing (modulating) the amplitude of two carrier waves.
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QoS (Quality of Service), control mechanisms that can provide different priority to different users or data flows, or guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow in accordance with requests from the application program.
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Queue, a buffer abstract data structure providing services in computer science, transport and operations research where various entities such as data, objects, persons, or events are stored and held to be processed later.
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RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service), an AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) protocol for applications such as network access or IP mobility.
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RADSL (Rate-Adaptive DSL), a variation of ADSL technology.
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RAS (Remote Access Services), any combination of hardware and software to enable the remote access to tools or information that typically reside on a network of IT devices.
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RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Companies), the result of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the American Telephone & Telegraph Company a.k.a. AT&T (not the AT&T Company that was created when SBC acquired the old AT&T Company).
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RDC (Remote Desktop Connection), allows a user to take control of his/her computer remotely.
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RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), a multi-channel protocol that allows a user to connect to a computer running Microsoft Terminal Services.
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REAP Discount (Ratio Efficiency Adjustment for Profit), determined by matching ISPs average hourly usage per customer figure (which will include complimentary or free accounts if any) with its corresponding column on the REAP discount table, or if not exact, the next highest column.
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Record, contains specific DNS zone information.
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Register, to identify and associate a product to the provider.
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Repeaters, an electronic device that receives a weak or low-level signal and retransmits it at a higher level or higher power, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation.
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Restore, to completely or partially return your system to the file and configuration state it was in before the last backup by uploading files from an archive.
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Reverse DNS, reverse DNS lookup (rDNS) is a process to determine the hostname or host associated with a given IP address or host address.
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ROI (Return On Investment), or rate of return (ROR), or sometimes just return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.
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Router, a computer networking device that buffers and forwards data packets across an internetwork toward their destinations, through a process known as routing.
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SAP (Service Access Point), an identifying label for network endpoints used in OSI networking.
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Scheduled Backup, moving or copying data files and configuration files on your server to a local system or FTP server at specified times.
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SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line), is a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) variant with E1-like data rates (72 to 2320 kbit/s).
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Secondary name server, the backup Domain Name System (DNS) server that translates alphabetic domain names into numeric IP addresses.
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Sendmail server, an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) mail server that routes SMTP email messages through the Internet to be stored on a mail server, such as POP3 or IMAP. SMTP is the most widely used email protocol on the Internet.
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Serial terminal, A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. Typically it provides a text terminal interface over a serial line.
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Server, a computer that provides services to other computers, or the software that runs on it also like the internet sites such as Google and Yahoo.
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Service, a single client or server application that can be installed on a server.
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Service Plan, a template that defines the default resource assignments and service offerings to be applied when you create a new domain. A template is not required to create a new domain, but it makes creating multiple domains faster and easier.
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Shell, a piece of software that provides an interface for users.
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Shell Script, a script written for the shell, or command line interpreter, of an operating system.
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Site Reports, page request statistics about your Apache Web or FTP server.
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SLA (Service Level Agreement), that part of a service contract in which a certain level of service is agreed upon.
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SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol), a mostly obsolete encapsulation of the Internet Protocol designed to work over serial ports and modem connections.
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SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), the de facto standard for e-mail transmissions across the Internet.
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SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), forms part of the internet protocol suite as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
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SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio), often abbreviated SNR or S/N, is an electrical engineering concept defined as the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal.
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SOA (Start of Authority) record, specifies the DNS server providing authoritative information about an Internet domain, the email of the domain administrator, the domain serial number, and several timers relating to refreshing the zone.
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SOHO (Small Office, Home Office), home-based workers or small office workers. Many SOHO customers require a low priced high-speed Internet service, which is why DSL is the perfect solution for SOHO.
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SONET (Synchronous Optical NETworking), a method for communicating digital information using lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) over optical fiber.
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SONET Ring, a series of fiber optic transmission rates that support ATM based packet switching, helping establish a digital hierarchical network that is standard worldwide. SONET bandwidth ranges from 51.84 Mbps digital data service.
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Spamming, the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, which are generally undesired.
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Specification file, a file that contains details about the object.
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Spyware, computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent.
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SQL (Structured Query Language), the most popular computer language used to create, retrieve, update and delete data from relational database management systems.
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SSI (Server Side Includes), an easy server-side scripting language used almost exclusively for the web.
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SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), now Transport Layer Security (TLS), are cryptographic protocols which provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.
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Subdomain, a domain that is part of a larger domain.
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Subnet mask, a subnetwork or subnet is a range of logical addresses within the address space that is assigned to an organization.
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Subscriber, a subscription sells periodic (monthly or yearly) use or access of a product or service rather than selling products individually.
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SUS (Sign Up Server), a method of allowing ISPs to sign up for Internet access using a credit card.
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SVC (Switched Virtual Circuit), a communications arrangement in which data from a source user is passed to a destination user over more than one real communications circuit during a single period of communication, and the switching is hidden from the users.
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System console, root console or simply console, is the text entry and display device for system administration messages, particularly those from the BIOS or boot loader, the kernel, from the init system and from the system logger.
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T1 (DS1) (Digital signal 1), also known as T1, sometimes "DS-1", is a T-carrier signaling scheme devised by Bell Labs.
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T-1 Interference, the presence of a T-1 in the same binder group as a line carrying DSL service can create enough interference to prevent DSL from being able to be delivered via that cable pair.
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TAT (TransAtlantic Telephone), a submarine communications cable that carries telephone traffic under the Atlantic Ocean.
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TCP/IP, is named after two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined.
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TDM (Time-Division Multiplexing), a type of digital or (rarely) analog multiplexing in which two or more signals or bit streams are transferred apparently simultaneously as sub-channels in one communication channel, but physically are taking turns on the channel.
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TELCO (TELephone COmpany), generic name for telephone companies throughout the world which encompasses RBOCs, LECs and PTTs.
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Telecommunications, the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication.
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Telnet (TELetype NETwork), a network protocol used on the Internet or local area network (LAN) connections.
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Turned up, a telecommunications term used to refer to a network line router or other device being turned on & brought into service.
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UBR (Unspecified Bit Rate), a service category similar to nrt-VBR, because it is used for connections that transport variable bit rate traffic for which there is no reliance on time synchronisation between the traffic source and destination.
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Upgrade, a replacement of hardware or software with a newer one, in order to bring the system up to date.
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UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), uninterruptible power source or sometimes called a battery backup, is a device which maintains a continuous supply of electric power to connected equipment by supplying power from a separate source when utility power is not available.
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URL (Uniform Resource Locator), a technical, Web-related term used in two distinct meanings: 1. in popular usage, it is a widespread synonym for Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); 2. strictly, the idea of a uniform syntax for global identifiers of network-retrievable documents was the core idea of the World Wide Web.
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USB (Universal Serial Bus), a serial bus standard to interface devices.
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User, refers to one who uses a computer system.
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User interface, the aggregate of means by which people (the users) interact with a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tool (the system).
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UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair), Twisted pair cables were first used in telephone systems by Bell in 1881 and by 1900 the entire American network was twisted pair, or else open wire with similar arrangements to guard against interference.
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Vacation message, a mail utility that automatically sends a standard reply message to an email message.
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VBR (Variable BitRate), a term used in telecommunications and computing that relates to the bitrate used in sound or video encoding.
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VBR-NRT (Variable Bit Rate-Non Real Time), an ATM service category where data transmission requires high performance (low cell loss) but timing is not important. Example: Web casting where audio and video data is stored on a web site for later retrieval.
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VBR-RT (Variable Bit Rate-Real Time), an ATM service category where transmission rates are in real-time. Example: Video conferencing or voice connections require real time connections.
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VC (Microsoft Visual C++), also known as MSVC, is an Integrated development environment (IDE) product engineered by Microsoft for the C, C++, and C++/CLI programming languages.
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VCI (Virtual Channel Identifier), a unique identifier which indicates a particular virtual circuit on a network.
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VDSL (Very high speed DSL), an xDSL technology providing faster data transmission over a single twisted pair of wires.
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Virtual DNS, this WEBppliance option allows you to specify a secondary DNS server on WEBppliance.
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Virtual site, an emulated site that includes a DNS domain with Web, FTP, and email capabilities. Each virtual site contains its own list of site user accounts. Each user account has its own set of Web and email services that can be managed by the virtual user.
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VoDSL (Voice over Digital Subscriber Lines), a technique for using both voice and high-speed data communications on one line.
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VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.
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VPI (Virtual Path Identifier), refers to an 8-bit (user to network packets) or 12-bit (network-network packets) field within the header of an Asynchronous Transfer Mode packet.
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VPN (Virtual Private Network), a private communications network often used by companies or organizations, to communicate confidentially over a public network.
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WAN (Wide Area Network), a computer network that covers a broad area (i.e., any network whose communications links cross metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries.)
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WEBppliance, can quickly convert a basic Linux server into a robust Web hosting appliance that is easily managed through user interfaces.
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Web hosting, a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web.
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Webmail, refers to the implementation of an e-mail client as a Web application that allows users to access their e-mail through a Web browser, as an alternative to using a desktop-based client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or Eudora.
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Wireless LANs, Local Area Networks connected without wires. Depending on the technology used, distances can be as large as Wide Area Networks.
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WWW (World Wide Web), or the "Web", is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet.
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xDSL, a family of technologies that provide digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network.
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ZIP, a popular data compression and archival file format.
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Zone, A DNS zone is a portion of the global DNS namespace.
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ISP Industry Acronyms A-E | ISP Industry Acronyms F-O | ISP Industry Acronyms P-Z | visp.net Specific Acronyms