This standard is issued by the General Services Administration pursuant to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, as amended.
This document provides Federal departments and agencies a comprehensive source of definitions of terms used in telecommunications and directly related fields by international and U.S. Government telecommunications specialists.
The Paperwork Reduction Reauthorization Act of 1986, Public Law 99-500 [44 U.S.C. 3502(13)], expanded the definition of "automatic data processing equipment (ADPE)" to include . . . any equipment or interconnected systems or subsystems or equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission or reception of data or information." This expansion in the scope of ADPE is implemented in the Federal Information Resources Management Regulation (FIRMR), 41 CFR. To minimize confusion between the statutory definition of ADP and the popular meaning of that term, GSA has established the term "Federal information processing (FIP) resources" to replace the term ADPE, as defined in Public Law 99-500.
The existence of multiple definitions for the same term in this standard reflects, in most instances, differences in meaning commonly assigned to these terms by practitioners in telecommunications and other, related disciplines. In some instances, however, the differences are not the result of interdisciplinary distinctions, but rather reflect variances in American and international usage or a need for further work in the various Government, national, and international standards-development groups to reach agreement on a common definition, or as a result of legislation. Source citations for some definitions (see the Legend pages) reflect the tracking of specialized glossaries for consistency.
The use of this standard by all Federal departments and agencies is mandatory.
Neither this nor any other glossary covering terms in an advanced-technology field such as telecommunications can be considered as complete and ageless. Periodic revisions will be made as required. The recommendations of Federal departments and agencies on improving the content or relevance of this document should be forwarded to the Office of the Manager, National Communications System, whose address is given in Section 5 of this standard.