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TalkTalk expert explains web jargon
Monday 17th August 2009, by Daniel King
There are a great deal of words and abbreviations that may be confusing broadband customers but many of these can be easily explained, one expert has advised.
In an article for the official TalkTalk blog, head of the company's product development Paul O'Sullivan outlined some of these phrases and attempted to clarify them for people.
DSL, which stands for digital subscriber line, was described as a network of internet services that rely on traditional copper telephone lines and DSLAM - which is digital subscriber line access multiplexer - is a gadget that combines signals from these and carries them "on a high-speed backbone".
Next generation access, often referred to as NGA, is a phrase that covers all broadband services capable of ADSL or ADSL2+ speeds that top 24 Mbps, while fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) is an optic system currently being trialled by TalkTalk.
FTTP, or fibre-to-the-premises, is similar to the latter product but is targeted at home and office users with services of up to 100 Mbps achievable. However, Mr O'Sullivan explained this is "expensive to implement" and may not play a big role in the future of the UK's online network for this reason.
Mbps was noted as the term used for the measure of bandwidth known as millions of bits, or megabits per second and 21CN is also known as 21st Century Network.
"TalkTalk has already [implemented this technology] and its network is the largest fully IP-enabled network in the UK," he added.
Mr O'Sullivan joined TalkTalk in November 2008, having worked for ten years in the web and telecommunications industry.
Categories: Broadband, Broadband Products, TalkTalk
