Glossary - E

E-1

European Digital Signal 1
European standard for digital transmission at 2.048 Mbps. Supports 30 simultaneous DS-OM signals. See E-3.

E-3

European Digital Signal 3
European standard for digital physical interface at 34.368 Mbps. It can simultaneously support 16 E-1 circuits.

E-4

European Digital Signal 4
European standard for digital physical interface at 139.264 Mbps.

E.164 (ATM)

A type of ATM Address format whose AFI is 45. The E.164 field takes up eight octets of a E.164 ATM address and is expressed in BCD and hex. This field specifies ISDN numbers which include telephone numbers.

EARN

European Academic Research Network (network)
See TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association).

EBCDIC

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (network)
One of the must common alphanumeric code, especially used in IBM devices. Capital letters, small letters and punctuation characters are coded with 8 bits words.

Ebone

European Backbone (network, Internet)
A pan-European backbone network service driven by a research network consortium.

ECMA

European Computer Manufactures Association (standard)
European equivalent of ANSI. Web site: http://www.ecma.ch.

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange (standard, communications)
Standards and procedures for electronically exchanging formal documents such as purchase orders, funds transfers and letters of credit while providing reliable and secure transmission.
EDI is most often used between different companies ("trading partners") and uses some variation of the ANSI X12 standard (USA) or EDIFACT (UN sponsored global standard).

EDIFACT

Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport (data interchange). United Nations International standard for EDI.
See also Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce and Transport.

EDM

Electronic Document Management (data interchange)
Technics and programs used to dynamically compute the disparate elements of a document as if they were a whole.

EEMA

European Electronic Mail Association (communications)
European body mainly formed by providers to promote electronic mail and data exchanges.

EEPROM

Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (hardware, memory)

EFCI

Explicit Forward Congestion Indication (ATM)
A 1-bit field in the PTI of the ATM cell header that contains information whether congestion at an intermediate node has been experienced. The EFCI bit is set when, i.e. a buffer threshold has been exceeded. See FECN, BECN.

EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adapter (graphics, hardware)
An IBM PC display standard with a resolution of 640 x 350 pixels of 16 colours.

EGP

Exterior Gateway Protocol (network, routing)

EIA

Electronic Industries Association (standard, body)
A publishing and standards-making body.

EISA

Extended Industry Standard Architecture (standard)
A high-speed bus standard developed for DOS by the IBM PC clone manufacturers industry in competition with the micro-channel architecture developed by IBM for the PS/2 computer.

ELAN

Emulated LAN (ATM)
See LAN Emulation.

e-mail - email

Electronic Mail (messaging, Internet)
Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer networks and/or via modems over telephone lines.
A message, especially one following the common RFC 822 standard, begins with several lines of headers, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message. An increasing number of e-mail systems support the MIME standard which allows the message body to contain "attachments" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain ASCII text. It is conventional for the body to end with a signature.
Headers give the name and electronic mail address of the sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get added by different message handling systems during delivery.
The message is "composed" by the sender, often using a special program - a "Mail User Agent" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "Message Transfer Agent" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, probably on another host. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using SMTP. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's mailbox - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same MUA as used by the sender).
The form "email" is also seen, but is less common and less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail".
Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a network". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleur", network. Also "email" is German for enamel.

EMI

Electromagnetic Interference (physical layer)

Enterprise Network (network)

Larger network connecting most major points in a company. Differs from a WAN in that it is typically private and contained within a single organization.

ENR

Enterprise Network Roundtable (ATM)
An ATM Forum associated group of ATM users to provide feedback on ATM-related issues and also present the users with completed interoperable capabilities and functionality.

EOC

Embedded Operations Channel (communications, ADSL)
Channel reserved for management on ADSL technique.

End Of Conversion (communications)

EOM

End Of Message (network, ATM)
Indication in a AAL3/4 cell header that indicate the last cell of a message.

EPROM

Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (hardware, memory)
ROM that can be erased and rewritten. The containt is not lost until one erases (!!) it with a special device.

EQL

Exqualization (physical layer)

ER

Explicit Rate. (ATM)
A field in the RM cell header specifying the cell rate a user should use for transmission over a virtual connection (VC), as it is dictated by the RM (see also CCR).

ES

End System (network)

Errored Second (physical layer)

ESF

Extended Super Frame (network, T1)

ESI

End Station/System Identifier (ATM)
A 6-octet field in the ATM Network Address that uniquely identifies an ATM endpoint within an Area in a Routing Domain.

Esprit

Esprit, the new information technologies (IT) programme, is an integrated programme of industrial R&D projects and technology take-up measures. It is managed by DG III, the Directorate General for Industry of the European Commission.
Information technologies are critically important for the competitiveness of all industries, both goods and services: IT is used inthe design and manufacture of products, is incorporated into the products themselves, and underpins the way companies dobusiness. Both multinational corporations and SMEs alike need IT to operate effectively in the global marketplace. Success for Europe depends, therefore, on the timely take-up of IT by European industry in general, and on Europe's IT industries providingappropriate products and services. It is for this reason that Esprit integrates R&D and take-up actions into a single programme - thereby facilitating the user-supplier collaborations that stimulate innovation.

ET

Exchange Termination (network)

ETAG

End Tag (ATM)

In HTTP, the etag is an equivalent for CRC.

Ethernet

LAN standard for 10 Mbps transmission of data; a shared medium whereby each user contends for the available bandwidth; actual throughput for each user is a fraction of the LAN speed (perhaps 1-3 Mbps per user). On a shared-media LAN, overall LAN performance degrades with each new user added. This is due to the LAN management collision detection and avoidance protocols. "Fast Ethernet" offers 100 Mbps transmission rates.

EtherTalk (network)

An Apple Computer network standard used to extend AppleTalk networking capability across an Ethernet network. See LocalTalk.

ETHOS

The European Telematics Horizontal Observatory Service (communications)
ETHOS, the Europan Telematics Observatory, was (the project finished in november 1999) a Horizontal Service for the Projects of the Telematcs Application Programme. In particular it was responsible for researching and presenting information which would be of use in developing telematics applications. It was also responsible for the co-ordination of the presentation of the results of the Telematics Application programme.
The Observatory operated for the duration of the Telematics Application Programme. Its Telematics Watch and results dissemination services are free of charge.
ETHOS liaised closely with other European actions, including the ACTS programme and the Telecities movement (many telematics applications deveoped by TAP will find homes initially with Telecities). ETHOS has also been adopted as a news-source for the G7 Information Society programme.
URL: http://www.ethoseurope.org/. See also JAMES.

ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards Institute (standard)
The corresponding body of ANSI in Europe, involved in providing and adapting standards for the European telecommunications.
ETSI site: http://www.etsi.org/.

Extranet (World-Wide Web, network, Internet)

An extranet is a collaborative network that uses Internet technology to link businesses with their suppliers, customers, or other businesses that share common goals. The term has been used by Jim Barksdale and Mark Andreessen of Netscape Communications to describe software that facilitates intercompany relationships. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's intranet that is made accessible to other companies or that is a collaboration with other companies. The shared information might be accessible only to the collaborating parties or, in some cases, might be public.
Examples of extranet applications might include:

• Private newsgroups that cooperating companies use to share valuable experiences and ideas
• Groupware in which several companies collaborate in developing a new application program they can all use
• Training programs or other educational material that companies could develop and share
• Shared product catalogs accessible only to wholesalers or those "in the trade"
• Project management and control for companies that are part of a common work project

EXZ

Excessive Zeroes (physical layer, error event)

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