Telecom Terms: Decoded
New technologies inevitably lead to new acronyms and abbreviations, and that is certainly the case in regard to communications. So, in each edition of the eNewsletter, we’ll devote a little space to helping you decode some of the more prevalent terms in our industry.
- VoIP – pronounced “v-oy-p”
- VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, which is the process of turning voice communications into IP packets and transmitting them over the Internet or other data network.
- UC – pronounced “you-see”
- In the telecom industry, UC stands for “unified communications”, which has a variety of meanings depending on who you talk to. At Cypress, we define UC as a truly unified voice and data experience where your voice calls are integrated with other applications such as presence, chat, unified messaging, and audio, video and web conferencing.
- UCaaS – pronounced “you-cas”
- UCaaS, short for Unified Communications as a Service, takes its name from the well-known SaaS, or software as a service, and the concept is the same. Instead of paying upfront capital for hardware or software to reside on your premises, the intelligence is located in the “cloud.” Users pay a monthly fee, get better technology via a fully managed solution and avoid the headaches of technology ownership.
- UM – pronounced “you-em”
- Unified messaging (UM) turns your voicemails into .wav files that are attached to an email and sent to your inbox. There’s no more missing important calls, and you can forward, organize and save voicemails just like regular files.
