Terms & Abbreviations
Getting started with embedded, mobile network IoT? A lot of abbreviations and terms are used in the world of the Internet of Things and telecommunication. Here we collected the most commonly used terms in a compact overview and provide a short description. Do not worry about remembering every term. Click on one of the letters to jump to the specific Terms & Abbreviations section:
A
| A2P | Application-to-person, traffic where a person receives messages from an application. |
| API | Application Programming Interface, defines interactions between software applications. |
| APN | Access Point Name, the name of the gateway between a mobile network and a core network. |
| ARN | Amazon Resource Names, uniquely identify AWS resources. |
| AT Command | Hayes Command Set (AT Command Set), a specific command language for communicating with mobile modems. |
| AWS | Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. |
C
| C | Checksum, a check bit of the ICCID calculated by the Luhn Algorithm. |
| CC | Country Code, number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). |
| CHAP | Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol, authenticates a user or network host to an authenticating entity. |
| CMP | Connectivity Management Platform, a portal offered by 1NCE to manage the connectivity services. |
| CoAP | Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a specialized Internet Application Protocol for constrained devices, as defined in RFC 7252. |
| CS | Circuit Switching, a method of implementing a telecommunications network where two network nodes establish a dedicated communications channel. |
D
| DCS | The DCS parameter specifies how the recipient should process the received SMS message. |
| DL | Downlink, a connection from data communications equipment towards data terminal equipment. |
| DLR | Report sent to the SMS Forwarding Service which acknowledges the delivery of a MT-SMS. |
| DNS | Domain Name System, a hierarchical and decentralized naming system for resources connected to the Internet. |
E
| eSIM | Embedded-SIM, a form of programmable SIM card that is embedded directly into a device. |
F
| FF | Form Factor, size of a SIM cards. |
G
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation, a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. |
| GSM | Global System for Mobile Communications, a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices. |
| GTP-U | GPRS Tunneling Protocol-User Plane - Used for signaling between the Radio network and Core network to transport the user data |
H
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol, an application layer protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. |
| HTTP 200 | HTTP 200 OK success status response code indicates that the request has succeeded. A 200 response is cacheable by default. |
| HTTP 500 | HyperText Transfer Protocol 500 Internal Server Error server error response code indicates that the server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request. |
| HTTP GET | HTTP GET method requests a representation of the specified resource. |
| HTTP PATCH | HTTP PATCH request method applies partial modifications to a resource. |
| HTTP POST | HTTP POST method sends data to the server. |
I
| IAM | AWS Identity and Access Management, enables AWS users to manage access to AWS services and resources securely. |
| ICCID | Integrated Circuit Card Identifier, a unique number that identifies the SIM card itself. |
| ICMP | Internet Control Message Protocol, a supporting protocol in the Internet protocol suite. It is used by network devices, including routers, to send error messages and operational information indicating success or failure when communicating with another IP address, for example, an error is indicated when a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be reached. |
| IEI | Information Element Identifier, a unique identity that enables a given information element to be determined within the operating context. |
| II | Issuer Identifier, a 1 to 4 digit code identifying the issuer of the SIM. |
| IIN | Issuer Identification Number, first 4 to 9 digits of ICCID of a SIM card. |
| IMEI | International Mobile Equipment Identity, a 14-15 digit number that consists of TAC and SNR number which identifies a device uniquely. |
| IMEISV | International Mobile Equipment Identity and Software Version, a 14-15 digit number + 2 digits for the software version. |
| IMSI | International Mobile Subscriber Identity, a subscriber number in a mobile network used to identify the SIM. |
| IoT | Internet of Things, a network of embedded devices exchanging data with other services over the Internet |
| IP | Internet Protocol, a communication protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across global networks. |
| IPSec | Internet Protocol Security, a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts the packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet |
| IPv4 | Internet Protocol version 4, the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). |
| IPv6 | Internet Protocol version 6, the sixth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). |
J
| JSON | JavaScript Object Notation, is an open standard file format, and data interchange format, to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and array data types. |
K
| Kinesis | Amazon Kinesis, makes it easy to collect, process, and analyze real-time, streaming data so you can get timely insights and react quickly to new information. |
L
| LTE Cat-M | Long Term Evolution - Machine Type Communication, a radio access technology standard developed by 3GPP to enable IoT communication |
| LWM2M | OMA SpecWorks’ LightweightM2M is a device management protocol designed for sensor networks and the demands of a machine-to-machine (M2M) environment. |
M
| MCC | Mobile Country Code, a 3 digit number which is used in mobile telecommunication to identify a country. |
| MFF2 | M2M Form Factor, a special chip-based form factor for embedded SIM cards. |
| MII | Major Industry Identifier, first digits of the ICCID, which represents the category of entity which issued the SIM card. |
| MNC | Mobile Network Code, a 2 to 3 digit number which is used in mobile telecommunication to identify a local network. |
| MNO | Mobile Network Operator |
| MSISN | Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number, a number uniquely identifying a subscription in a Global System for Mobile communications or a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System mobile network. |
| MT-SMS | Mobile Terminated SMS, message sent to a mobile SIM device. |
| MTU | Maximum Transmission Unit, the size of the largest protocol data unit (PDU) that can be communicated in a single network layer. |
N
| NAT | Network Address Translation, a method of translating IP address spaces into another by modifying network address information during the transit across a routing device. |
| NB-IoT | Narrowband Internet of Things, a radio technology standard developed by 3GPP to enable low power communication between embedded, cellular devices and services. |
| NITZ | Network Identity and Time Zone, a mechanism for provisioning local time and date, time zone and DST offset. |
| NTP | Network Time Protocol, a networking protocol for clock synchronization between systems over packet-switched. |
O
| OAuth | Open Authorization, an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for Internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords. |
| OS | Operating System, is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. |
P
| P2P | Peer-to-peer, a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. |
| PAP | Password Authentication Protocol, a password-based authentication protocol used by Point to Point Protocol (PPP). |
| PDP | Packet Data Protocol, a packet transfer protocol used in wireless mobile networks. |
| PDP Context | Packet Data Protocol, a data structure that contains subscribers session information during an active session. |
| PIN | Personal Identification Number, a numeric passcode used in the process of authenticating a user accessing a system. |
| PING | Ping, a network administration utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol network. |
| PLMN | Public Land Mobile Network, a wireless communication system intended for use by terrestrial subscribers. The code identifies the country (MCC) and network (MNC). |
| PPP | Point-to-Point Protocol, a data link layer communication protocol between two routers directly without any host or any other networking in between. |
| PS | Packet Switching, a method of grouping data that is transmitted over a network into packets. |
| PUK | Personal Unblocking Key, used in 3GPP mobile phones to reset a personal identification number (PIN) that has been lost or forgotten. |
R
| RAT | Radio Access Technology, the physical, wireless connection method for radio-based communication networks. |
| REST | Representational state transfer, a software architectural style that uses a subset of HTTP. |
S
| S3 | Amazon Simple Storage Service, an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. |
| SIM | Subscriber Identity Module, stores sensitive customer information to authenticate a subscriber on a mobile network. |
| SIM - ID | SIM - ID, a unique number for each SIM to identify the card. |
| SMS | Short Message Service, a text message service found in most telephone and mobile devices. |
| SMSC | Short Message Service Center, a network element in the mobile telephone network handling the SMS. |
| SPN | Service Provider Name |
| SSH | Secure Shell Protocol, a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. |
T
| TAP | TUN and TAP are kernel virtual network devices. Being network devices supported entirely in software, they differ from ordinary network devices which are backed by physical network adapters. |
| TCP | Transmission Control Protocol, a connection-oriented protocol, one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. |
| TGW | Transit Gateway, enables you to attach AWS VPCs and VPN connections in the same Region and route traffic between them. |
| TUN | TUN and TAP are kernel virtual network devices. Being network devices supported entirely in software, they differ from ordinary network devices which are backed by physical network adapters. |
U
| UDH | Optional header of a SMS message which describes how the message should be formatted and processed. |
| UDP | User Datagram Protocol, a connectionless protocol, one of the core members of the Internet protocol suite. |
| UL | Uplink, a connection from data communications equipment toward the network core. |
| UPP | UBIRCH Protocol Packet, takes care of packaging the hashed data and signing the package. |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator, a reference to a specific web resource that specifies its location on a network. |
| UUID | Universally Unique Identifier, a 128-bit number used to identify information in computer systems. |
V
| VPN | Virtual Private Network, software that encapsulates and transmit network data over another network. |