Netopia Router PN Series - Manual (Page 273)

GL-3
Bridge: A device that supports LAN-to-LAN communications.
Bridges may be equipped to provide frame relay support to the LAN
devices they serve. A frame-relay-capable bridge encapsulates LAN
frames in frame relay frames and feeds those frame relay frames to
a frame relay switch for transmission across the network. A
frame-relay-capable bridge also receives frame relay frames from
the network, strips the frame relay frame off each LAN frame, and
passes the LAN frame on to the end device. Bridges are generally
used to connect local area network (LAN) segments to other LAN
segments or to a wide area network (WAN). They route traffic on the
Level 2 LAN protocol (e.g., the Media Access Control address),
which occupies the lower sub layer of the LAN OSI data link layer.
See also Router.
broadcast: A network transaction that sends data to all hosts
connected to the network.
Burstiness: In the context of a frame relay network, data that uses
bandwidth only sporadically; that is, information that does not use
the total bandwidth of a circuit 100 percent of the time. During
pauses, channels are idle; and no traffic flows across them in either
direction. Interactive and LAN-to-LAN data is bursty in nature,
because it is sent intermittantly, and in between data transmission
the channel experiences idle time waiting for the DTEs to respond to
the transmitted data user’s input of waiting for the user to send
more data.
byte: A group of bits, normally eight, which represent one data
character.
CallerID: See CND.
CCITT (Comite Consultatif International Telegraphique et
Telephonique): International Consultative Committee for Telegraphy
and Telephony, a standards organization that devises and proposes
recommendations for international communications. See also
ANSI
(American National Standards Institute).
Channel: Generically refers to the user access channel across
which frame relay data travels. Within a given T1 or E1 physical line,
a channel can be one of the following, depending on how the line is
configured.