Glossary
A
ACD (Automatic Call Distribution)
What It Is and How It Actually Works in VoIP
Automatic Call Distribution, or ACD, is a VoIP feature that helps businesses route incoming calls to the right person without manual transfers or long wait times. Instead of having callers jump between departments or agents, ACD connects them to someone who can help right away.
B
Find out what a call blacklist is, how it helps block unwanted calls, and why both businesses and individuals rely on it. We’ll walk through real use cases and answer common questions.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a policy that allows employees to use their own smartphones, laptops, and tablets for work tasks, including VoIP calls and messaging. For companies that rely on cloud telephony, BYOD VoIP is a convenient way to connect a distributed team without buying hardware for everyone.
When set up correctly, BYOD helps companies save money, speed up onboarding, and keep employees flexible — while still protecting business data and call security.
C
Call forwarding is a simple but powerful feature that sends incoming calls from one number to another — automatically. Whether you’re traveling, working from home, or just stepping away from your desk, your callers still reach you.
A call recording is exactly what it sounds like — saving a copy of a phone conversation so it can be listened to later.
A callback is when a company calls a customer back instead of keeping them on hold. Imagine you’re trying to reach customer support, but the line is busy or you don’t feel like waiting with the phone glued to your ear. You just leave your number, and the company gets back to you once someone is free.
CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) is basically a cloud-based toolbox for communication. Instead of investing in complicated telecom infrastructure, a business can simply “plug in” features like phone calls, SMS, video chats, or even two-factor authentication into its own app or website through easy-to-use APIs.
When you make a VoIP call and the sound is clear, with no echo or “robotic” voice, a lot of the credit goes to the codec. You don’t see it on the screen, but it quietly works in the background, deciding how your voice is packed into data and sent over the internet.
For any business that uses cloud telephony, softphones, or virtual numbers, understanding VoIP codecs helps you avoid bad audio, dropped calls, and wasted bandwidth.
Caller ID is the feature that tells you who’s calling before you answer. On a regular phone, it’s just the number (and sometimes a name) that appears on the screen when the phone rings.
In VoIP and cloud telephony, Caller ID plays a bigger role. It helps your business look professional, protects employees’ personal numbers, and makes it easy for customers to recognize your company and call you back. When caller ID VoIP is set up correctly, your calls look consistent and trustworthy, no matter where your team is working from.
In business communication, the core value is not speed, but reliability. When the network wavers, it doesn't just damage VoIP Call Quality—it ruins your reputation. The client feels their time is being disregarded. Network Congestion is a direct statement of carelessness. Call Admission Control (CAC) is your ethical choice for discipline. It is the tool that guarantees: we will never operate at the expense of your existing partners. CAC is the strategic decision for Preventing Call Degradation, securing Network Stability, and turning every accepted call into confirmation of your impeccable User Experience.
When you make a call, you expect your voice and your conversation partner's voice to be clear, without breaks or robotic distortion. Behind the scenes, before you hear the first sound, your devices must quickly agree on the rules of the game. This process is called Codecs Negotiation. It is a crucial, split-second "dialogue" between your phone and the server that determines how your voice will be compressed and transmitted over the internet. This mechanism ensures you get either high-fidelity studio clarity or stable connectivity on a weak internet connection.
We all know that moment: you're having an important business discussion, but you suddenly need to rush out of the office or simply move to another room. Historically, this meant a panicked, "I'll call you right back," or worse, a dropped connection. Thankfully, that problem is gone forever, thanks to Call Flip! It’s truly a magical trick for your call—a digital "handoff" that lets you instantly and invisibly move an active conversation between devices, ensuring perfect call continuity. This is your guarantee that professionalism doesn't end where your movement begins.
Every time your phone rings, it’s a person reaching out—they aren't just a transaction; they're a potential relationship. But when your lines are flooded, that dreaded busy signal is the equivalent of slamming the door in their face. It screams: "We don't have time for you." We know that fear of losing a customer because you couldn't pick up the phone. Call Queuing is your gentle, gracious solution. It’s the digital hand that reaches out to your customer and says, "Please, stay. You matter to us." This simple act of caring and communication takes the panic out of Managing High Call Volumes and gives you the confidence to truly Reduce Dropped Calls.
Picture this: you need to get your whole team on a call — colleagues scattered across cities, clients in different time zones, partners working remotely. How do you make sure everyone can join the same conversation without confusion or hassle? That’s where conference bridging comes in. It’s the simple but powerful technology that connects everyone into one call, so your meetings, brainstorming sessions, or quick check-ins happen naturally and smoothly.
Have you ever hesitated to pick up a call just because you didn’t recognize the number? That’s exactly the problem CNAM solves. It shows the caller’s name right next to the number, so people know who’s calling before they even answer.
For businesses, this small detail can make a big difference - it builds trust, helps calls get answered, and makes your company look professional every time you reach out.
CRM Integration is the crucial VoIP feature that connects your phone system with your customer data. It boosts sales team efficiency, enables screen popping, and ensures seamless call logging.
Your sales team shouldn't spend precious time typing notes into a spreadsheet. Manual data entry is the biggest enemy of speed and personal connection. We believe your team should focus 100% on the customer. CRM Integration is the bridge that turns that belief into reality. It’s the smart, strategic feature that allows your phone system and your customer history to communicate perfectly, like a seamless, trusted assistant. This vital VoIP integration automatically connects every call with customer data synchronization, enabling invaluable features like instant screen popping and meticulous call logging. The result is immediate and powerful: you boost sales team efficiency and provide the kind of personalized, informed service that truly builds loyalty.
D
When someone wants to call your company, they don’t want to get lost in endless menus or wait forever. They just want to talk to the right person. That’s where a DID number comes in. It’s a simple way to make your communication smoother, faster, and more professional.
DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency)
DTMF is the official name for the short beeps you hear when you press buttons in a phone menu. In VoIP, these beeps are not just sounds — they’re clear signals that tell your phone system what the caller wants to do.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection
As a business leader, your communications are your lifeline. But there's always that nagging fear—the pit in your stomach—that one day, your phone system will just... stop. That's the reality of a DDoS attack. It’s not just a technical problem; it’s a direct hit on your reputation. When it happens, your team looks to you, your customers can’t get through, and your hard-earned trust starts to crumble. DDoS Protection is the confident answer you need. It’s the profound relief that comes from knowing you’ve proactively built an unbreakable shield around your phone lines, guaranteeing your promise of reliability is always kept—to everyone who relies on you.
E
A VoIP extension number is a short internal number that helps people inside a company reach each other quickly. Instead of dialing a full phone number every time, employees use these simple internal numbers to call colleagues, departments, or teams. It’s a small thing, but it makes everyday communication much faster and more organized.
F
These days, most business calls happen online. That’s VoIP in action—using the internet instead of old-school phone lines. But not all VoIP services are the same. Fixed VoIP is a type that’s often overlooked but highly valued by companies that care about reliability, trust, and a professional image.
When your internet, SIP trunk, or main phone route goes down, every missed call can mean lost clients and lost revenue. VoIP failover routing is the safety net that keeps your phone system working even when something breaks. It automatically sends calls to a backup call route so customers can still reach you.
Fax over IP, or FoIP, is a modern alternative to traditional faxing. Instead of using old copper phone lines, faxes travel over the internet. For many companies, this means fewer hardware problems, lower costs, and the ability to send or receive faxes from anywhere-not just from a machine standing in the office.
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A VoIP gateway is a device or software tool that allows different types of phone systems to work together. It connects traditional telephony—like PSTN lines and analog phones—with modern VoIP platforms. Companies often use gateways when they want to move to VoIP but still rely on some older equipment or phone lines.
Managing teams across continents is hard enough without adding dialing code confusion! We get it. Why should calling a colleague in Sydney feel like a 15-digit mission? It shouldn't. The Global Dial Plan is the secret weapon that simplifies your entire operation. It provides one simple, universal language for every single phone number in your company, creating a simple unified numbering scheme that just works. It instantly eliminates complicated international dialing rules, letting your teams collaborate freely and making your whole company feel small again.
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Remember when office phones meant heavy equipment and expensive tech setups? Those days are fading fast. Hosted PBX is basically your phone system, but without the hassle. Instead of keeping hardware in your office, everything runs through the internet, managed by your provider.
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If you’ve ever called a company and heard a friendly voice say, “Press 1 for sales, 2 for support,” you’ve experienced IVR. It stands for Interactive Voice Response, and it’s an automated system that helps callers reach the right person or get the right information quickly. Instead of waiting on hold or being transferred multiple times, customers can navigate through a simple phone menu and get answers faster.
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Before Wi-Fi and smartphones, almost every home and office relied on a landline. This is the traditional phone service that connects calls through wires—usually copper or fiber cables. Even though mobile phones and internet calling (VoIP) are now common, landlines are still around because they are stable, simple, and often work even when other systems fail.
M
When you speak to someone over a VoIP line, you can instantly feel whether the sound is good or not. Sometimes the voice is clear and pleasant, other times it breaks or lags. The MOS score is a way to express that real listening experience in a single number. It shows how the call actually sounds to a person, not to a machine. That is why it is still one of the most trusted indicators of call quality.
N
Today, most of us live and work online. Businesses are expanding globally, and people are no longer tied to one office or one country. That’s why non-fixed VoIP has become such a popular solution.
P
With so many businesses moving to cloud phones and VoIP, you might think older technologies are long gone. But that’s not true—Primary Rate Interface (PRI) is still around, and for good reason. It’s a solid, dependable way for companies to handle a lot of calls at once, with great sound quality and minimal downtime.
When companies set up VoIP phones, one of the first practical questions is how to power them. Do you need an adapter for every phone? Are there enough outlets? Is there a way to avoid extra cables on every desk? This is where PoE becomes extremely helpful. It lets you deliver both internet and power through a single Ethernet cable, making the whole system cleaner and much easier to manage.
When you make a call over the internet, usually the voice goes through servers that work quietly in the background. But with Peer-to-Peer (P2P) VoIP, the call skips all that — it connects your device directly to the other person’s device. No middleman, no extra steps. That means the call is faster, simpler, and lighter on resources. It’s perfect for personal chats, small apps, or situations where speed and simplicity really matter. Big businesses often rely on servers to get extra features, but P2P is great when you just want to get the job done.
If you’ve ever been on a VoIP call where the other person’s voice suddenly cuts out, words disappear, or everything sounds robotic, you’ve likely encountered packet loss. It’s one of the most common culprits behind poor call quality in VoIP systems. And while the term sounds technical, the idea behind it is actually simple: your voice travels the internet as small data packets — and when some of them don’t reach their destination, the conversation starts to fall apart.
This guide explains packet loss in plain, human language, so you know what’s happening, why it happens, and how to prevent it from ruining your calls.
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RTP (Real time Transport Protocol)
When you make a voice call on WhatsApp, join a Zoom meeting, or use VoIP in your office, RTP is quietly doing the heavy lifting. It’s the technology that makes sure your voice, video, or any real-time data reaches the other side quickly and smoothly. Without RTP, internet calls would be slow, choppy, or completely unusable.
In many businesses the phone rings at moments when people are already busy. Someone is helping a customer, someone stepped away from their desk, someone is in the middle of another task. A ring group makes sure the call does not get missed. It lets several team members receive the same call, so whoever is free can answer. It is a small feature, but it makes daily work much smoother.
We designed Rate Limiting specifically to make that feeling disappear. This isn't cold technology; it’s our proactive care for your business. It’s the invisible, friendly force that keeps everything calm and running smoothly by applying a simple speed limit to all traffic. This powerful VoIP security mechanism ensures your budget is protected, your service remains stable, and your focus stays entirely on your success, not on digital dangers.
S
If you use VoIP for business or personal calls, you might have heard about SIP ALG. It is a feature in many routers that is supposed to “help” with internet phone calls. The problem is that in most cases, it does the opposite, causing dropped calls, poor quality, or connection errors. That is why understanding SIP ALG is important for anyone who wants stable online communication.
When you make a call over the internet, it feels simple: you dial, someone picks up, and you start talking. But behind the scenes, there’s a system making sure your call finds the right path. One of the key parts of that system is the SIP proxy server. Without it, many VoIP calls would never connect properly.
SIP trunking makes business phone calls easier, cheaper, and more flexible. Instead of using old-fashioned phone lines, it uses the internet to connect your company’s phone system. For businesses that make lots of calls or have teams in different countries, SIP trunks are a game-changer.
Every time you make a call over the internet, it feels instant — you press the number, hear the ring, and start talking. Simple for you, but behind the curtain, your call has to find the right path to connect. One of the key pieces that makes this possible is the SIP port. You can think of it as the “doorway” your VoIP calls walk through. If the wrong door is closed, your call might not even get started.
A softphone is one of the easiest ways to make and receive calls without using a desk phone. Many people work from laptops, tablets or smartphones, and a softphone lets them use those devices like a regular phone. It is a simple app that gives you the same calling features as an office phone but without any hardware.
Picture this: you’re discussing something important with a client, maybe sharing a contract detail or talking through internal plans — and someone you don’t know manages to listen in. It’s an uncomfortable thought, but it can happen when calls travel across the internet without protection.
Your VoIP conversations pass through different networks, routers, and devices before they reach the other person. If those call setup messages aren’t secured, someone with the wrong intentions might intercept them. SIP Over TLS solves this problem. Think of it as sealing your call instructions inside a strong, tamper-proof envelope that only you and your provider can open. With it, your communication stays private, protected, and far less vulnerable to unwanted access.
For any organization, communication isn't just a function—it’s a commitment to the client. When your network is hit by sudden, uncontrolled data floods (a "traffic storm"), the consequences are immediate: service disruption, compromised calls, and a silent erosion of professional credibility. This isn't just a technical glitch; it's a direct threat to your reputational integrity. Storm Control is the non-negotiable solution. It’s the strategic decision to proactively build operational resilience. This system quietly and effectively neutralizes internal chaos, ensuring that your Enterprise Telecommunications infrastructure remains consistently stable and predictable, upholding your promise of reliable service.
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TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
Every time you open a website, send a message, or make a call online, something works in the background to keep everything running smoothly. That something is TCP. You don’t see it, you don’t control it, but without it the internet would feel messy and unreliable. Let’s take a closer look at what TCP is and why it’s so important for everyday online life.
Sometimes people hesitate to call a company because they don’t want to spend money on the call. A toll-free number removes that barrier. It gives your customers an easy, free way to reach you — and at the same time shows that you’re open, approachable, and ready to listen.
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When you play an online game or join a live video call, you expect speed above everything else. That’s where UDP comes in. Unlike its careful sibling TCP, UDP doesn’t double-check every little detail. Instead, it just sends data as quickly as possible. The result? Faster performance — but with a small trade-off.
V
Running a business means always staying connected — with clients, partners, and your own team. But let’s face it: traditional phone systems are heavy, outdated, and expensive to maintain. A Virtual PBX changes the game. Think of it as your business phone system, only smarter — living in the cloud. No tangled wires, no pricey equipment, just a flexible setup that works wherever you and your team do.
We’ve all been there — the phone rings, but you’re in the middle of something important. Instead of losing that call forever, voicemail gives your caller a chance to leave a message. For businesses, it means customers always have a way to reach you. For personal use, it’s simply peace of mind that nothing slips through the cracks.
A VoIP number looks just like a regular phone number, but it works through the internet. It gives you freedom: call from anywhere, stay connected on any device, and often pay much less than with traditional phone services.
VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network)
In many offices the internet has to handle everything at once. Computers, phones, printers, cameras, people joining video calls and someone streaming music during lunch. When all of this goes through the same network, it becomes crowded, and that often affects phone calls first. A VLAN is an easy way to make things more organized so VoIP calls stay clear and steady.
W
A whitelist is like a personal “VIP list” for your phone system. Only the numbers you trust get through. Unlike a blacklist, which blocks unwanted calls, a whitelist focuses on the opposite — it makes sure important contacts can always reach you.
Z
When people work from home, travel or simply prefer using their computer instead of a desk phone, they often need a simple app that lets them make calls the same way they would in the office. Zoiper is one of those apps. It turns your laptop or smartphone into a full phone without any special hardware. It is easy to use, easy to set up and works well for both small teams and large companies.
When your business is operating globally, you need predictable costs and firm control over where your phone budget goes. You can't afford surprises on your monthly bill! This is precisely why Zone Calling exists. It’s the intelligent system that breaks down the vast, complex world of international dialing into manageable, predictable segments (zones). This vital VoIP zone segmentation allows you to set clear budgets, apply specific rules for different departments, and ensure that every call route is optimized for both quality and cost. For any company serious about traffic management, understanding zones is essential.