Glossary
Telecommunications Technician Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential telecommunications technician terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key telecommunications technician vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in telecommunications technician training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Bend radius
- The minimum curve a cable can safely make.
- Central office
- A provider facility with switching equipment.
- Coax
- Coaxial cable used for cable TV and internet.
- dB loss
- Signal loss measured in decibels.
- Demarc
- The point where provider responsibility ends.
- Drop
- The line from the network to a building.
- Fiber optic cable
- Glass strands that carry data as light.
- Fusion splicer
- A tool that melts fibers together.
- Modem
- Converts signals for internet service.
- ONT
- Optical network terminal at the customer site.
- OTDR
- Optical time-domain reflectometer for testing fiber.
- Patch cord
- A short connecting cable.
- PON
- Passive optical network.
- Splice
- A permanent joint between fibers.
- VoIP
- Voice over internet protocol.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Telecommunications Technician practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Telecommunications Technician training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.