Guides, glossary & telecom reference

What an autonomous system number identifies, how to read one on an IP result, and what it does not tell you about quality, ownership or the path.

Take a test route to production without breaking binds, windows or receipts: bind, throughput, keep-alive, encoding, callbacks and failure handling.

How long a foreign SIM may roam before it needs a local profile, for Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, with the decision path to the right product.

How premium China routing differs from standard international transit: what changes, what stays the same, and which questions decide the fit.

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The checklist for China-bound connectivity: filing, data-transfer scoping, and the single contact and escalation path. Not legal advice.

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How sender IDs work across markets: alphanumeric, numeric and short-code paths, registration expectations and country examples.

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The launch sequence for an eSIM brand or MVNO: coverage, profiles, testing, billing and go-live, with regional examples.

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Field lists for SMS wholesale, eSIM and data, IoT and China connectivity requests, plus the online checklist that sends as an RFQ.

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A desensitized static sample of a route-test report: what a route test checks, how failures read, and what triggers a route review.

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What SGP.32 changes for IoT fleets, which devices qualify, and why SGP.02 devices cannot be upgraded over the air.

Network retirement is an operator closing a 2G or 3G network, which stops any device that relies on that bearer.

Application-to-person SMS is traffic an application sends to a handset, such as a verification code or a transaction alert, via a registered sender.

An access point name selects the gateway a mobile data session uses, from the public internet to a private enterprise network.

An autonomous system number identifies the network that announces an address prefix, and the AS path shows which networks the route crosses.

Steering an antenna array's energy toward a device.

BGP is how autonomous systems announce address reachability, and the AS path shows the networks a route crosses.

Combining multiple carriers to increase the effective bandwidth.

A call detail record (CDR) is the billable line for one network event, used to reconcile invoices against records.

One radio coverage area served by a base-station sector.

Data residency is where data is stored and processed, and the jurisdiction whose rules apply to it.

Dedicated internet access gives one site committed internet capacity, a static address block and a demarcation point, distinct from IP transit.

A delivery receipt reports the mobile network's status for a sent SMS, such as delivered, expired, rejected or unknown.

The domain name system turns a hostname into an address, and a slow or filtered lookup can make a healthy server look slow.

The E-UTRA absolute radio frequency channel number names one LTE carrier: a band and an exact frequency encoded in one integer.

An eSIM is a downloadable operator profile stored on an embedded chip, not a plastic card. Consumer devices use SGP.22 and IoT devices use SGP.32.

The eUICC is the secure chip that stores eSIM profiles; one chip holds several, usually with one active, and SGP.22 v3 adds multiple enabled profiles.

The eUICC identifier, separate from the subscription.

A frequency band is a named slice of radio spectrum with an uplink and a downlink range, such as B3 or n78.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation requires a lawful basis and purpose limits for personal data, and sets out people's rights over it.

The 5G base station; eNodeB is the 4G equivalent.

GSM-7 is the 7-bit alphabet for basic Latin text in SMS: 160 characters per segment, or 70 once the message switches to UCS-2.

The home location register records where a subscriber attaches and whether the line can receive. An SMS route can query it before delivery.

The LTE (4G) subscriber database; in the 5G core the UDM and UDR take this role, and the HSS remains for EPC and IMS interworking.

The ICCID is the serial number on a SIM or eSIM profile. It names the card, rather than the subscription.

ICP filing records a website and its operator with China's authorities before content is served from mainland China.

An international Ethernet private line gives two sites private Ethernet capacity between countries, with committed bandwidth and a handoff.

The IMEI is the 15-digit identity of a handset or module. It names the device, not the SIM inside it.

The IMSI is the subscription identifier on a SIM: up to 15 digits of MCC, MNC and MSIN that the network uses to authenticate and locate a device.

IP transit rents full-table reachability from an upstream, so a network can announce its prefixes and reach the whole internet.

An international private leased circuit is a dedicated TDM private line between countries, still installed where legacy interfaces remain in service.

The variation in latency from packet to packet.

Delay between two points, measured one-way or round-trip, set by distance, hops and queues, and measured along a path rather than a link.

Brazil's LGPD governs personal data with legal bases, data-subject rights, ANPD supervision and extra safeguards for children's data.

The device component that downloads, enables and manages eSIM profiles.

LTE-M is a low-power LTE bearer for machines, with handover and optional voice that NB-IoT lacks, plus more throughput.

M2M links meters, trackers and sensors that report without a person, so the traffic profile decides the bearer, the power budget and the monitoring.

Mobile country code: the three digits in an IMSI and a PLMN identity that name the country of a network.

How a long SMS splits into segments, why most routes bill each one, and how encoding changes the count.

MIIT is China's ministry for industry and information technology, and it sets the rules for telecom networks, spectrum, numbering and filings.

Mobile network code: the two- or three-digit code after the MCC that names one operator network in a country.

Mobile network operator: the company that holds spectrum licenses and runs the radio access and core network that carry traffic.

Mobile number portability lets a subscriber keep a number across operators, which breaks prefix-based routing and requires a portability check.

The subscriber part of an IMSI after the MCC and MNC.

The diallable phone number in international E.164 format, which identifies a subscription and can move to another network.

Several IMSIs on one SIM let a device present a local identity per country, but they remain one subscription.

Mobile virtual network operator: a brand that buys wholesale network access and sells subscriptions without owning spectrum.

NB-IoT is a narrowband low-power bearer for small, infrequent device messages, with deep indoor reach and long battery but no handover or voice.

A single-use code sent by SMS to check who controls a phone number, with a short expiry and attempt limits.

Opt-in is provable prior consent to receive messages: the wording, timestamp, source and scope a sender records and can produce.

An opt-out is the working exit from a message stream: a reply such as STOP that is recorded and reaches every system able to send.

Person-to-person SMS is traffic one person sends another. It has no sender registration or template approval, so it is not for application messages.

The core node that assigns the device IP address and exits data to the internet or a private network.

The share of packets that never arrive.

A protocol data unit is one SMPP command on the wire, such as submit_sm: a fixed header, then a body set by the command.

Ping shows whether a host answers and how long a round trip takes on one path at one moment.

China's PIPL governs personal information with consent and necessity rules, plus defined routes for cross-border transfers.

A public land mobile network is one operator network identified by an MCC and MNC pair, broadcast by its cells and stored in the IMSI.

Point of presence: a city or facility where a network hands traffic to another network on the path to the user.

A private APN routes fleet traffic to a dedicated gateway and into a corporate network, keeping it off the public internet.

The base stations, antennas and radio controllers that connect devices over radio to the core.

Rich Communication Services is carrier messaging with media, branding and read receipts where operators and handsets support it.

Reassigning spectrum from an older generation to a newer one.

Roaming lets a subscription use visited networks outside its home market under inter-operator agreements, while the home network keeps control.

Reference signal received power is the LTE signal-strength measurement in dBm that field teams compare, unlike the bars a device shows.

Round-trip time is the measured form of latency between two endpoints, covering both directions of the path.

The sender identity a message appears to come from, alphanumeric, numeric or a short code, and how markets register it.

Sender registration records who may send, from which identity and for what content, before traffic flows.

The legacy M2M eSIM provisioning generation, managed through subscription-manager servers, with no over-the-air path to SGP.32.

The consumer eSIM specification: the user starts a profile download with a QR code or an app.

SGP.32 is the GSMA eSIM specification for IoT fleets: an eIM orders profile downloads and enables or deletes profiles without a person at the device.

A short code is a short numeric sender allocated within one country, often separately registered, for high-volume two-way application messaging.

The subscriber identity module holds a subscription's identity and authentication keys, and its form factor is packaging.

SMPP is the binary protocol applications use to submit SMS to a message center and receive receipts on a transceiver or a receiver bind.

An SMS signature is the bracketed sender name at the start of a China-bound template and part of the approved content.

Message text approved in advance for destinations that regulate content as well as the sender, including the variable rules and the re-approval step.

A short message service center stores and forwards each submitted SMS to the destination network and, on request, returns a final status report.

The radio frequencies a regulator assigns to mobile networks.

The type allocation code is the first eight IMEI digits. It names the device model, not the individual unit.

The rate data actually moves, not the link's headline rate.

Time to first byte measures how fast a server starts answering: DNS, connection setup, server processing and the first byte back.

The 16-bit SMS encoding used for most emoji and non-Latin scripts: 70 characters per segment, 67 once concatenated.

Voice over LTE carries calls as IP packets on the LTE bearer, so a device needs VoLTE support once older networks retire.

An event post to an HTTPS endpoint: receipts, inbound messages and status changes that the receiver must verify, acknowledge fast and queue.