Glossary
GL-3
LATA:
Local Access Transpor t Area. A LATA defines the historical
boundar y within which most Local Exchange Carriers (see also LEC)
can provide end-to-end multi-switch ser vice. If the called par ty is
inside a different LATA than the call originator, the affected LECs
may need to pass off the call to a long distance carrier (like AT&T,
MCI, or Sprint). There are currently 198 LATAs in the United States,
Puer to Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.
LEC:
Local Exchange Carrier. A telephone company affiliate of a
Regional Bell Operating Company or an independent telephone
company, such as Southern New England Telephone (SNET), GTE, or
hundreds of others.
Multilink PPP
: A feature that allows a maximum digital connection
of 128 Kbps by vir tually linking two 56 Kbps or 64 Kbps B channels.
NI-1:
National ISDN-1. Defined by Bellcore, National ISDN (NI-1) is
an agreement among telephone companies and Customer Premise
Equipment vendors to jointly provide the first phase of
standards-based ISDN. National ISDN is a collection of standards to
allow Customer Premise Equipment to work across different
telephone company switches using the Basic Rate Inter face.
NT1:
Network Termination 1. A customer-owned device that
connects to the U Inter face and is responsible for the physical and
electrical termination of the ISDN line. An NT1 is built into the
Netopia ISDN Modem.
packet:
A package of data. The data is usually in binar y format and
organized in a par ticular way for transmission. Each packet
generally contains address information, the data being sent, and
error-checking information.
PAP:
Password Authentication Protocol. A method of security which
involves an exchange of a plain text user ID and password to verify
the user.
POP:
Point of Presence. The location to which telephone companies
and Internet Ser vice Providers have an access point for ser vices.
PPP:
Point-to-Point Protocol. A link control protocol used for
transmission of multi-protocol data over synchronous or
asynchronous serial links.