Cellular & Wireless Glossary

Prepaid Cellular or Prepaid Wireless: A system allowing subscribers to pay in advance for wireless services.

Protocol: The special set of rules for communicating that the transmitting receivers use in a telecommunication connection when they send signals back and forth.

PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network): The formal name for the world-wide telephone network.

Radio-frequency Fingerprinting: An electronic process that identifies each individual wireless handset by examining its unique radio transmission characteristics. Fingerprinting is used to reduce fraud since the illegal phone can not duplicate the legal phone's radio-frequency fingerprint.

Repertory Dialing: Sometimes known as "memory dialing" or "speed-calling." A feature that allows the caller to recall from 1-to-99 (or more) phone numbers from a phone's memory with the touch of just one, two or three buttons.

RF (Radio Frequency): A radio signal.

RFI (Radio Frequency Interference): A signal that interferes with radio communications causing noise and/or signal dropout.