(1) ITU-T recommendation for international telecommunication numbering, especially in ISDN, BISDN, and SMDS. An evolution of standard telephone numbers.
(2) Name of the field in an ATM address that contains numbers in E.164 format.

European standard of the T1, a digital circuit with standardized characteristics that operate at 2.048 Mbps. This standard is widely used in Europe as a rough equivalent of a DS-1, (E1 provides thirty 64 Kbps channels - six more than a DS-1).

Wide-area digital transmission scheme used predominantly in Europe that carries data at a rate of 34.368 Mbps. E3 lines can be leased for private use from common carriers.

Enterprise Application Integration

Integrating IT systems with new applications; a sophisticated approach to middleware.

Extensible Authentication Protocol

EAP is a PPP extension that provides support for additional authentication methods within PPP.

European Academic Research Network

European network connecting universities and research institutes. EARN merged with RARE to form TERENA.

European Backbone

Pan-European network backbone service.

Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment

Provides companies the ability to send bills electronically over the Internet to their customers.

A signal that determines whether a node can receive and acknowledge data transmissions. A host sends an echo request packet. If the destination is properly connected and receives the echo request packet, it sends back an echo reply packet.

A chip that identifies and erases echoes occurring in satellite and terrestrial long-distance phone calls of about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) and beyond.

Mode in which keyboard characters are echoed on a terminal screen upon return of a signal from the other end of the line indicating that the characters were received correctly.

Encryption Control Protocol

Used to negotiate data encryption over PPP links.

Enterprise Computer Telephony Forum

Electronic Design Automation

Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution

Uses a new modulation schema to enable data throughput speeds of up to 384 Kbps using existing GSM infrastructure.

Physical device that is capable of forwarding packets between legacy interfaces (such as Ethernet and Token Ring) and ATM interfaces based on data-link and network layer information. An edge device does not participate in the running of any network layer routing protocol, but it obtains forwarding descriptions using the route distribution protocol.

Electronic Data Interchange

A term for data communications systems and technologies used to automate common paper-based business transactions and exchange standardized business forms, direct from one computer to another. This technology is most often used for data communication between major buyers of a product and large suppliers of that product.

Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce, and Transport

Data exchange standard administered by the United Nations to be a multi-industry EDI standard.

Enterprise Defined Network Services

The managed data network services offering planned by Infonet.

End-to-End Call Manager

Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory

EPROM that can be erased using electrical signals applied to specific pins.

Explicit Forward Congestion Indication

In ATM, one of the congestion feedback modes allowed by ABR service. A network element in an impending congestion state or in a congested state can set the EFCI. The destination end-system can implement a protocol that adaptively lowers the cell rate of the connection based on the value of the EFCI.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Foundation established to address social and legal issues arising from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of computers as the means of communication and information distribution.

Enhanced Full Rate

Speech codec defined specifically for speech quality purposes with an improved coding algorithms for higher tolerance to interference.

Electronic Fund Transfer

Exterior Gateway Protocol

A routing protocol used by gateways in two-level Internets. EGP is used in the Internet core system.

Electronic Industries Association

Group that specifies electrical transmission standards. The EIA and TIA have developed numerous well-known communications standards, including EIA/TIA-232 and EIA/TIA-449.

Extended Industry Standard Architecture

A specification for a PC-bus architecture featuring a 32-bit input/output bus. In competition with IBM's Micro Channel Architecture.

Emulated LAN

ATM network in which an Ethernet or Token Ring LAN is emulated using a client-server model. ELANs are composed of an LEC, an LES, a BUS, and an LECS. Multiple ELANs can exist simultaneously on a single ATM network. ELANs are defined by the LANE specification.

Enhanced Local Management Interface

Enterprise Management Architecture

Digital Equipment Corporation network management architecture, based on the OSI network management model.

Electronic Messaging Association

Forum devoted to standards and policy work, education, and development of electronic messaging systems such as e-mail, voice mail, and facsimile.

Electromagnetic Interference

Interference by electromagnetic signals that can cause reduced data integrity and increased error rates on transmission channels.

Electromagnetic Pulse

Caused by lightning and other high-energy phenomena. Capable of coupling enough energy into unshielded conductors to destroy electronic devices.

Europe PDH transmission speed

Device that modifies information into the required transmission format.

Application of a specific algorithm to data so as to alter the appearance of the data making it incomprehensible to those who are not authorized to see the information.

An ATM routing metric that measures the time it takes a cell to get from one end of a connection to the other

Large and diverse network connecting most major points in a company or other organization. Differs from a WAN in that it is privately owned and maintained.

End of Message

Indicator that identifies the last ATM cell containing information from a data packet that was segmented.

End of Transmission

Generally, a character that signifies the end of a logical group of characters or bits.

Early Packet Discard

Mechanism used by some ATM switches for discarding a complete AAL5 frame when a threshold condition, such as imminent congestion, is met. EPD prevents congestion that would otherwise jeopardize the switch's ability to properly support existing connections with a guaranteed service.

The operating system for wireless devices, such as handheld organisers, that was developed by Psion.

Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory

Non-volatile memory chips that are programmed after they are manufactured, and, if necessary, can be erased by some means and reprogrammed.

Technique used to compensate for communications channel distortions.

Explicit Rate

In ATM, an RM cell used to limit the ACR for a transmission to a specific value. Usually the source initially sets the ER initially to a requested rate, such as the PCR. Later, any network element in the path can reduce the ER to a value that the element can sustain.

Enterprise Resource Planning

The linking of a company's various business operations and functions by means of complex software. ERP is now being rapidly extended to the growing number of e-business applications being developed over the Internet, connecting customer, supply chain and other activities.

Technique for detecting and correcting errors in data transmissions.

Code having sufficient intelligence and incorporating sufficient signalling information to enable the detection and correction of many errors at the receiver.

Code that can detect transmission errors through analysis of received data based on the adherence of the data to appropriate structural guidelines.

End System

Generally, an end-user device on a network. Non-routing host or node in an OSI network.

Encapsulating Security Payload

A mechanism which provides confidentiality and integrity protection to IP datagrams.

Electrostatic Discharge

Discharge of stored static electricity that can damage electronic equipment and impair electrical circuitry, resulting in complete or intermittent failures.

Extended SuperFrame

Framing type used on T1 circuits that consists of 24 frames of 192 bits each, with the 193rd bit providing timing and other functions. ESF is an enhanced version of SF.

End System Identifier

Identifier that distinguishes multiple nodes at the same level when the lower level peer group is partitioned (usually an IEEE 802 address).

Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

Extended version of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which includes additional functionality such as delivery notification and session delivery. ESMTP is described in RFC 1869, "SMTP Service Extensions."

Extended Services Processor

(1) The most widely used LAN access method, which is defined by the IEEE 802.3 standard. Ethernet is normally a shared media LAN meaning all devices on the network segment share total bandwidth. Ethernet networks operate at 10 Mbps using CSMA/CD to run over 10BaseT cables.
(2) The most common layer-two protocol used in LANs. Ethernet is a 10 Mbps CSMA/CD standard originally developed by Xerox to run on thick coaxial cabling. It has evolved and now runs primarily on twisted pair cabling.
(3) An older broadband technology that carries data over coaxial cable, twisted pair, etc. in LANs and transmits data over a very limited area. An Ethernet LAN has a transmission speed of up to 10 Mbps, although each individual user sees only a portion of that line speed as real throughput.

Event that causes saturation, or near saturation, on an Ethernet. It usually results from illegal or misrouted packets and typically lasts only a short time.

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

An international standards body, comparable to ANSI, that recommends standards for telephony, ISDN, wireless, plesiochronous, and synchronous transport in Europe.

In ATM, traffic in excess of the insured rate for a given connection. Specifically, the excess rate equals the maximum rate minus the insured rate. Excess traffic is delivered only if network resources are available and can be discarded during periods of congestion.

The process of running a compressed data set through an algorithm that restores the data set to its original size.

A route imported into the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) database from outside the router's Autonomous System (AS)

A private web site, intended for use only by those business partners and select customers you choose to grant access to.

Excessive Zeros