Glossary - I

IAB

Internet Architecture Board (network, Internet, standard)
The technical body that oversees the development of the Internet suite of protocols. It has two task forces: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).
"IAB" previously stood for "Internet Activities Board".

IAHC

Internet (International) Ad Hoc Comity (network, Internet)

IANA

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (network, Internet)
The central registry for various Internet protocol parameters, such as port, protocol and enterprise numbers, and options, codes and types. The currently assigned values are listed in the "Assigned Numbers" document [STD2].
To request a number assignment, contact the IANA at iana@isi.edu.

IAP

Internet Access Provider (network, company, Internet)
A company or other organisation which provides access to the Internet to businesses and/or consumers. An IAP purchases an Internet link from another company that has a direct link to the Internet and resells portions of that bandwidth to the general public.
For example, an IAP may purchase a T1 link (1.544Mb/s) and resell that bandwidth in chunks consisting of ISDN (64Kb/s, 128Kb/s) and analog modems (14.4Kb/s, 28.8Kb/s). The IAP's customer base is likely to include both businesses and individuals. Individual customers usually connect to the IAP via a modem and telephone line to a (preferably local) point of presence.
An IAP may also be an Internet Service Provider.

IBC

Integrated Broadband Communication (network)

IC

Integrated Circuitry (hardware)
Technique for the fabrication of complex circuitry on a single silicon chip.

ICD

International Code Designator (ATM)
A type of ATM Address format whose AFI is 47. The ICD is a two-octet field following the AFI field in a DCC ATM address. This field, expressed in BCD, identifies an international organization registered by the British Standards Institute.

ICMP

Internet Control Message Protocol (network, Internet)

ICQ

A proprietary chat system (see IRC).
Acronym probably derived from "I seek you".

ICR

Initial Cell Rate (ATM)
The rate that a source is allowed to startup at following an idle period. It is established at connection set-up and is between the MCR and the PCR.

IDAPI

Integrated Database Application Programming Interface (database)
A standard from Borland and others (DB, IBM, Novell) providing a standard interface to a wide range of databases. It is supposed to be a superset of ODBC. predecessor, BDE, API.

IDE

Intelligent Drive Electronics / Integrated Drive Electronics (hardware)

IDL

Interface Definition Language
Language used to describe in execution environments the interfaces provided by separately compiled "application modules".

IDU

Interface Data Unit (network, layer)

IEC - IC - IXC (IEC is preferred)

InterExchange Carrier (network)
A company providing long-distance phone service between local telephone companies LECs and LATAs. Also known as long distance carriers, such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, WilTel, etc.

International Electrotechnical Commission (standard)
A Electrical and electronic engineering standard body at the same level as ISO located in Geneva, Switzerland.
Site: http://www.iec.ch/.

International Engineering Consortium (standard)
The International Engineering Consortium (IEC) conducts a broad range of university and industry cooperative programs consisting of educational forums and workshops, research studies, publications, Web education, and management services.
Web site: http://www.iec.org/.

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (standard, body)
A publishing and standards-making body for the electronics industry. For instance, they developed the Ethernet and token ring standards (IEEE 802.3 and 802.5 standards).
IEEE site: http://www.iec.org/.

IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force (standard, body, network, Internet)
A body, which was initially responsible for developing specifications required for the interoperable implementation of IP. One of the issues IETF has been focusing on is the implementation of Classical IP over ATM.
IETF site: http://www.ietf.org/.

IGMP

Internet Group Management Protocol (network, Internet)
Used by IP hosts to report their multicast group memberships to an adjacent multicast router.

IISP

Interim Inter-Switch Protocol (P-NNI phase 0) (ATM)
Formerly known as PNNI Phase 0, this limited, temporary routing scheme requires net managers to establish PVCs between switches from different vendors. Unlike PNNI Phase I, which will automatically distribute routing information, IISP relies on static routing tables. Routing is done hop by hop.

ILMI

Interim Local Management Interface (ATM)
An ATM Forum-defined Network Management System (NMS) based on SNMP that can provide configuration, performance and fault management information concerning virtual circuits (VC) connections available at its UNI (public and private). It operates over AAL3/4 and AAL5and will be eventually replaced once it becomes standardized by ITU-T.

IM (communications)

Intermodulation
The mixing of two or more signals, producing sums, differences and harmonic multiples. IM generally occurs in the gain amplifier ahead of the mixer stage within a receiver, but also occurs in any non-linear device.

IMA

Inverse Multiplexing for ATM (network, ATM)

IMAP

Internet Message Access Protocol (network, Internet)
A method to access electronic mail or bulletin board messages that are kept on a (possibly shared) mail server.
To have more information: Go to the site of the The IMAP Connexion at the University of Washington.

IN

Intelligent Network (network)
Advanced Public Switched Network capable of providing switching, routing, and control via distributed computing platforms and control points. The IN allows for rapid integration of new services into the network and provides for offering the same services over a wide service region.

Indeo (graphic, compression, algorithm)

Intel's compression algorithm for video playback and CD-ROM applications that works with the proprietary DVI (Digital Video Interactive) system or as a stand-alone CODECCODEC for use with QuickTime and Video for Windows. It supports playback at rates of 15 frames per second. These can be viewed full-screen while maintaining the same playback rate.

INRIA

French institute specialized on computers research and automatic research.
English web site: http://www.inria.fr/welcome-eng.html.

Interface

A boundary across which two systems communicate. An interface might be a hardware connector used to link to other devices, or it might be a convention used to allow communication between two software systems. Often there is some intermediate component between the two systems which connects their interfaces together. For example, two RS-232 interfaces connected via a serial cable.
See also graphical user interface, Application Program Interface (API).

Internic

Internet Network Information Center (network, Internet)
Centre created by the American foundation NSF in order to allow Internet users to access information and statistics about Internet using its servers.
Web site: http://www.internic.net/.

Internet(Note: capital "I") (network, Internet)

The Internet is the largest internet in the world. It is a three level hierarchy composed of backbone networks (e.g. ARPAnet, NSFNet, MILNET), mid-level networks, and stub networks. These include commercial (.com or .co), university (.ac or .edu) and other research networks (.org, .net) and military (.mil) networks and span many different physical networks around the world with various protocols including the Internet Protocol. There are several bodies associated with the running of the Internet, including the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the Internet Engineering and Planning Group, Internet Engineering Steering Group and the Internet Society.

internet (Note: not capitalised) (network)

Any set of networks interconnected with routers. The Internet is the biggest example of an internet.

Internetwork

Series of networks interconnected by routers or other devices that functions as a single network.

Interoperability (general, hardware, network)

The ability of software and hardware on multiple machines from multiple vendors to communicate meaningfully.

Intranet (networking, Internet)

Any network which provides similar services within an organisation to those provided by the Internet outside it but which is not necessarily connected to the Internet. The commonest example is a company which sets up one or more servers on an internal network for distribution of information within the company.

IP

Internet Protocol (network)
Originally developed by the Department of Defense to support the interworking of dissimilar computers across a network. Provides connectionless, datagram-based network layer (layer 3) functions across heterogeneous networks and networking technologies. Works in conjunction with TCP and often identified together as TCP/IP.

IP Address (network, Internet)

The 32-bit address defined by the Internet Protocol in RFC 791.
It is usually represented in dotted decimal notation. Depending on the adress class, the IP adress is divided in network part and host part.
Example: 157.159.119.254.

IPFSP

IP Fax Service Provider (network, Internet)

IPNS

ISDN PABX Networking Specification (network)
Signaling system used between PABX.

IPP

Internet Printing Protocol (network, Internet)

IPX

Internetwork Packet Exchange (network)
A protocol similar to IP that was developed by Novell.

IRC

Internet Relay Chat (network, Internet, service)
Global system developed to make Internet users "chat" together.

Iridium(network, satellite)

global satellite low-orbit personal communication system based on multiple LEOs, to be available before the 3^rd millennium. One of the main participant is Motorola.

IRQ

Interrupt ReQuest (hardware)
it is a identification number used by peripherals so that they are recognized by programs when an event occurs on them. For instance, IRQ 5 is usually used by sound cards. IRQ numbers are initially allocated by the BIOS.

IRTF

Internet Research Task Force (network, Internet, standard)
The IRTF is chartered by the Internet Architecture Board to consider long-term Internet issues from a theoretical point of view. It has Research Groups, similar to Internet Engineering Task Force Working Groups, which are each tasked to discuss different research topics. Multi-cast audio/video conferencing and privacy enhanced mail are samples of IRTF output.
Web site: http://www.irtf.org/.

IS

Intermediate System (ATM)

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network (network)
A set of communications standards allowing a single wire or optical fibre to carry voice, digital network services and video. ISDN is intended to eventually replace the plain old telephone system (POTS).
ISDN was first published as one of the 1984 ITU-T Red Book recommendations. The 1988 Blue Book recommendations added many new features. ISDN uses mostly existing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) switches and wiring, upgraded so that the basic "call" is a 64 kilobits per second, all-digital end-to-end channel. Packet and frame modes are also provided in some places.
There are different kinds of ISDN connection of varying bandwidth (see DS level):

DS0	=	1 channel PCM at	64 kbps
T1 or DS1	=	24 channels PCM at	1.54 Mbps
T1C or DS1C	=	48 channels PCM at	3.15 Mbps
T2 or DS2	=	96 channels PCM at	6.31 Mbps
T3 or DS3	=	672 channels PCM at	44.736 Mbps
T4 or DS4	=	4032 channels PCM at	274.1Mbps

Each channel here is equivalent to one voice channel. DS0 is the lowest level of the circuit. T1C, T2 and T4 are rarely used, except maybe for T2 over microwave links.
A Basic Rate Interface (BRI) is two 64K "bearer" channels and a single "delta" channel ("2B+D"). A Primary Rate Interface (PRI) in North America and Japan consists of 24 channels, usually 23 B + 1 D channel with the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI usually has 30 B + 1 D channel and an E1 or DS1interface.
A Terminal Adaptor (TA) can be used to connect ISDN channels to existing interfaces such as RS-232 and V.35.
Different services may be requested by specifying different values in the "Bearer Capability" field in the call setup message. One ISDN service is "telephony" (i.e. voice), which can be provided using less than the full 64 kbps bandwidth (64 kbps would provide for 8192 eight bit samples per second) but will require the same special processing or bit diddling as ordinary PSTN calls. Data calls have a Bearer Capability of "64 kbps unrestricted".
ISDN is offered by local telephone companies, but most readily in Australia, France, Japan and Singapore, with the UK somewhat behind and availability in the USA rather spotty.
(In March 1994) ISDN deployment in Germany was quite impressive, although (or perhaps, because) they use a specifically German signalling specification, called 1.TR.6. The French Numeris also uses a non-standard protocol (called VN4; the 4th version), but the popularity of ISDN in France is probably lower than in Germany, given the ludicrous pricing. There is also a specifically-Belgian V1 experimental system. The whole of Europe is now phasing in Euro-ISDN.

ISO

International Standard Organisation (standard, body)
A voluntary, nontreaty organisation founded in 1946, responsible for creating international standards in many areas, including computers and communications.
ISO produced the seven layer model for network architecture (Open Systems Interconnection).
Its members are the national standards organisations of more than 120 countries, including the American National Standards Institute.
The term "ISO" is not actually an acronym for anything. It is a pun on the Greek prefix "iso-", meaning "same". Some ISO documents say ISO is not an acronym even though it is an anagram of the initials of the organization's name.
Web site: http://www.iso.ch/.

Isoc

Internet Society (network, Internet, standard)
The Internet Society is a non-profit, professional membership organization which facilitates and supports the technical evolution of the Internet, stimulates interest in and educates the scientific and academic communities, industry and the public about the technology, uses and applications of the Internet, and promotes the development of new applications for the system.
The Society provides a forum for discussion and collaboration in the operation and use of the global Internet infrastructure.
The Internet Society publishes a quarterly newsletter, the Internet Society News, and holds an annual conference, INET.
The development of Internet technical standards takes place under the auspices of the Internet Society with substantial support from the Corporation for National Research Initiatives under a cooperative agreement with the US Federal Government.

Isochronous

Signals which are dependant on some uniform timing or carry their own timing information embedded as part of the signal.

ISP

Internet Service Provider (network, Internet)
A company that offers to other companies or individual access to or presence on the Internet.
Most ISPs are also Internet Access Providers; extra services include help with design, creation and administration of World-Wide Web sites, training, and administration of intranets.

IT

Information technology

Itineris

Name given to France Telecom's GSM network (France).

ITSEC

Information Technology Security Evaluation Criteria (security)

ITU

International Telecommunication Union
An agency of the United Nations which coordinates the various national telecommunications standards so that people in one country can communicate with people in another country.
Web site: http://www.itu.ch/.

ITU-T

International Telecommunications Union-Telecommunications (network, standards body)
ITU specifications on telecommunication. The new name for CCITT. An international standards body which is a committee of the ITU, a U.N. treaty organization. Other name ITU-TSS.

ITU-TSS

International Telecommunications Union-Telecommunications Standards Sector (network, normalization)
Other name for ITU-T.

IWF

Interworking Function

IWU

Interworking Unit (network)

IXC

Inter-Exchange Carrier
A public switching network carrier that provides connectivity across and between LATAs.

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