Creativyst's Glossary of Industry Related Terms

Industry Terms

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(Creativyst™ Glossary)

OC-768

	Sonet technology providing 40 Gbps on a single circuit.
	See Also: Fiber Optics

OCW

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	See: Oldest Call Waiting

ODBC

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	See: Open Database Connectivity

OFDM

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Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing - A modulation technique for transmitting large amounts of digital data over radio waves. It is the modulation technique used in 802.11a and 802.11g WLANs.

OFDM is also technically a good choice for use in broadband mobile services such as cellular phones and PDAs. Some U.S. providers are currently considering it as a 4G successor to 3G technologies such as CDMA. Most agree however, that the commercial adoption of OFDM by cellular providers is a long way off, as they are heavily invested in 3G technologies.

OFDM has been around since the late 1960s but it has only recently become commercially viable for use in consumer products such asWLANs. OFDM has become practical for widespread use because it relies on high-speed digital signal processors, and DSPs have only recently become available at prices that make OFDM a competitive technology in the marketplace.

See Also: Calls In Queue FIFO

OLED

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	Organic LED - A specially fabricated LED which uses organic chemistry (as opposed to inorganic Si technology used in standard LEDs) to create a solid-state light-emitting element. They are more efficient, brighter, and more flexible than standard LEDs, but are new technology, which is still more expensive and less reliable than the old.
	See Also: LED

On-Hook

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On-Hook and Off-Hook Signals - the terms on-hook and OFF-HOOK were derived from the old telephones that use a hook to hold the handset. When the handset was removed to make or answer a call, it was OFF-HOOK. Otherwise, it was on-hook. In modern networks, a station is on-hook if the conductor loop between the user station and the end office is open, with no current (voice or data traffic) flowing. The OFF-HOOK has a dc shunt across the line, causing current to flow.

Open Database Connectivity

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	ODBC - A psuedo-standard "Call Level Interface" for accessing records and fields in SQL databases without regard to what vendor wrote the database software used.
	See Also: SQL

Out of Band Signaling

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Out-of-band signaling is a method of transmitting telephone control signals on a separate channel from the content (or "traffic") signals.

Early signaling systems carried the control signals on the same circuit as the user traffic; for example, the older in-band analog systems use this approach. The newer signaling systems, such as SS7, use a separate channel for signaling information. These systems are called common channel signaling (CCS) systems because a separate (common) channel is used for signaling. Some people call this approach out-of-band signaling and it is preferred to in-band signaling because it is more efficient and robust.

Two types of Out of Band Signaling exist today; Physical Out-Of-Band and Physical In-Band/Logical Out-Of-Band Signaling. SS7 is an example of the first type -- physical out-of-band signaling-- in which a separate physical channel is used for signaling. ISDN is an example of physical in-band/logical out-of-band signaling. With this later approach, signaling and user traffic share the same physical channel, but part of the channel is reserved only for signaling traffic; The remainder is reserved for user traffic, such as the telephone call. In ISDN, packets are multiplexed in time in order to subdivide the available bandwidth between logical channels.

	Open Financial Exchange - An XML standard to transfer data between institutions and personal finance software. As you can probably tell by the word 'open' in the title, it is a Microsoft sponsored specification.
	See Also: IFX ISO-15022 FPML

	Describes a call center in which the agents make outgoing calls rather than wait for incoming calls. Outbound call centers perform many tasks, such as telesales, follow-up support, and opinion surveys, to name a few.
	See Also: Inbound Call Blending

	Calls that flow from one agent group or call center to another. Intraflow occurs when calls flow between agent groups in a call center. Interflow is when calls flow out of the ACD to another site.