Appendix R    Glossary   
R-1 
Appendix R Glossary 
A 
ADE ......................................................................................................... Above Deck Equipment 
AOR ........................................................................................................... Atlantic Ocean Region 
APN ................................................................................................................ Access Point Name 
ASCII...........................................................American Standard Code for Information Interchange 
*A standard alphanumeric character set based on 7-bit codes. 
AZ .................................................................................................................................... Azimuth 
B 
BDE ......................................................................................................... Below Deck Equipment 
Bit .............................................. The basic unit of digital communications; may be either 1 or 0. 
  BPS (bit per second) ................. A unit of measurement for speed of data transfer or throughput. 
BR .................................................................................................................................... BeaRing 
Bulletin Board (in a TDM channel) 
*A data packet transmitted in each frame of a TDM channel which contains 
information about the status of the Inmarsat B/M, mini-M and C network 
configurations and the current frame number, used by the MES as a timing 
reference. 
Byte *One byte comprises eight bits and may represent either one alphanumeric   
character or numeric information. 
C 
  CCIR .......................................... Consulting Committee of International Radio communications 
  CCITT ....................................... Consulting Committee of International Telegraph & Telephone 
Character   *One element of an alphanumeric character set. One character is 
equivalent to one byte or 8 bits. 
  COMM .................................................................................................................. Communication 
  CPU .......................................................................................................... Central Processing Unit 
  Command  *The generic name for anything you tell a computer program to do. 
 CS ........................................................................................................................ Circuit Switched 
D 
  dB ....................................................................................................................................... Decibel 
  DC ........................................................................................................................... Direct Current 
  DCN ........................................................................................................................ Disconnection 
  DEC ...................................................................................................................... Decoder Circuit