#HugeDriveToUnjargonConnectivityJargon – in Plain English
When it comes to acronyms, colloquialisms, and budding terminology, jargon affects us all. However, if there’s one place where natural language barriers fall away and things get totally confusing, it’s with ‘connectivity-speak.’ Our worldwide web requires translation at the best of times, but connectivity jargon throws up a bunch of confusing words, letters and phrases all of its own.
Connectivity jargon, heavily acronym-based, sometimes needs its own dictionary. To that end, we’d like to shed a little light and we hope this helps you to better understand this tangled word web:
3G – third-generation wireless technology regarding speed, which must be at least 384kbps (kilobytes per second).
4G – fourth-generation wireless technology of which there are two: WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) which provides PHL (multiple physical layer) and MAC (Media Access Control) and LTE (Long Term Evolution) – the latter based on an IEEE (Institute of Electronics Engineers) rating.
Bandwidth – measured in Mbps (Megabytes per second) and here’s where connectivity jargon counts, as it’s not to be confused with internet speed – bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferable at one time.
Bandwidth Throttling – a narrowing of bandwidth which the service provider does to reduce the normal amount of transferrable data at a time.
Bluetooth – a wireless connection, using short-range signals that enable devices in close proximity to connect and communicate. Wireless headsets and hands-free car kits operate using Bluetooth.
Chatbot – human conversation and communication simulation.
GBps – gigabytes per second.
Gbps – gigabits per second.
Hashtag – (#) labels keywords or phrases for use in social media, connectivity jargon notwithstanding, converting them into active links to a feed that is updated in real time – a great assist in searches. Remember to leave no spaces between words preceded by a hashtag as demonstrated in the title heading above.
Hotspot – an area where there is Wi-Fi (wireless internet signal).
HTML – Hypertext Mark-up Language, which is a coding language used to design websites.
IP-Address – (Internet Protocol) address, or unique number assigned to all and every device connected to the internet.
ISP – Internet Service Provider.
LAMP – Linux, Apache, MySQL (My – and here’s where connectivity jargon rules, is the name of the founder’s daughter and SQL stands for Structured Query Language) and PHP (which they call a recursive acronym, stands for Hypertext Pre-processor), the 4 basic software technologies for creating websites. Sometimes Perl (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language) or Python (you’re going to love this – Python isn’t an acronym. It’s implementor, Guido van Rossum was also reading the published scripts from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a BBC comedy series from the 1970s at the time and thought he needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious and so, in another way that epitomizes connectivity jargon perfectly, he decided to call the language Python) is meant instead of PHP as the scripting language.
LAN – Local Area Network: a network of connected devices that share information, generally used within companies for ease of access in sharing documents, videos, images etc.
MBps – megabytes per second.
Mbps – megabits per second.
P2P – Peer to peer network for two or more computers to communicate without routers or servers.
Phishing – online scam systems where bad people imitate popular websites so they can collect personal information entered.
Proxy – an intermediary-type server for access to data held by other servers.
Server – this refers to a super-fast computer which delivers information all over a network at lightning speed. Servers are used, for example, to host websites so when a user connects, a webpage will be displayed.
The Cloud – Instead of storing data on a hard disk drive, it is stored on the Internet via networks and servers.
The IoT – the Internet of Things refers to the ability of the Internet to connect to objects and the “things” themselves.
VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol for making calls via an internet connection.
VPN – Virtual Private Network – the connectivity jargon explaining a service that hides personal identities by routing traffic through a proxy server.
Web browser – The particular software displaying websites you search for on the Internet.
Wi-Fi – a wireless hotspot that wireless devices use to connect to the Internet. Wi-Fi is not short for Wireless Fidelity, as apt as that may seem, it is simply a trademarked phrase that means IEEE 802.11x.
So, there you have it, connectivity jargon ‘unjargoned’ for your edification. This makes a fun read to take the boredom out of any a boardroom meeting or a quiz game to test the team’s jargon literacy.
