Customer Premises Equipment & Unified Communications Flashcards

What is the E.164 numbering standard and where is it used?

Answer: The ITU-T international telephone numbering plan defining the format of PSTN telephone numbers (country code + national number, up to 15 digits)

E.164 defines the global PSTN numbering format; a fully qualified E.164 number begins with '+' followed by the country code and national number, used for international call routing.

In a contact center environment, what does 'ACD' stand for and what does it do?

Answer: Automatic Call Distributor; routes incoming calls to the most appropriate available agent based on configured rules and skill groups

An ACD intelligently queues and distributes incoming calls to agents based on skills, availability, priority, or other business rules, forming the core of a contact center.

What is the purpose of a 'codec' in VoIP telecommunications?

Answer: To compress and decompress analog voice signals into digital data for IP transmission, trading off audio quality against bandwidth consumption

VoIP codecs like G.711 (64 kbps, uncompressed), G.729 (8 kbps, compressed), and Opus trade audio quality for bandwidth efficiency, allowing voice to be packetized and transmitted over IP networks.

What is 'Direct Inward Dialing' (DID) and why is it useful for enterprise phone systems?

Answer: A carrier service providing a block of telephone numbers that route calls directly to individual enterprise extensions without going through a receptionist or main number

DID numbers allow external callers to dial directly to an employee's extension using a unique PSTN number, while the enterprise shares a smaller pool of actual PSTN trunk lines.

What standard governs the provisioning of telephone numbers in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP)?

Answer: The NANP, administered by ATIS, using the NPA-NXX-XXXX format (area code - exchange - subscriber number) across the US, Canada, and 20+ countries

The NANP defines 10-digit numbering (3-digit NPA area code + 3-digit NXX exchange + 4-digit subscriber number) and is administered by ATIS under FCC oversight.

What is a 'softphone' in a unified communications environment?

Answer: A software application on a PC, smartphone, or tablet that emulates a full-featured telephone, using VoIP to make and receive calls through the network

Softphones replace physical desk phones with software clients, enabling employees to take and make calls from any device with internet access—a key enabler of remote and hybrid work.