is that these technologies aren't in use anymore SONET/SDH - Still in use today (though not as much as in the past) SAN - Storage area network. Basically any

is that these technologies aren't in use anymore SONET/SDH - Still in use today (though not as much as in the past) SAN - Storage area network. Basically any large enough organization is going to have one. FC - Fibre Channel, still one of the top ways to connect SAN and other storage arrays. FCoE - Fibre Channel over Ethernet, taking the FC protocols and moving them over copper B2B credits - Back to Back buffer credits. Knowing this is like knowing about TCP window size adjustments or three way handshake. It's knowing about how the protocol works over the wire. NOC - Network Operations Center, the place where the network guys keep an eye on the physical layer. PSTN - Public switched telephone network. Think all of the hardline telephones. It's that entire network. Still in use as my grandmother can attest to. 3G - 3rd generation wireless (or at least the wireless carriers brand it that way). OOB - Out of band. Not using the normal network of a particular system. ex: using a modem hooked up to the PSTN to dial out and send calls when a server's IP network is down. OOB communication is very common as it provides redundancy when all the "normal" stuff fails. SMS - Short Message Service. Non-picture text messages. GSM - Global System for Mobile Communication. One of the two leading wireless protocols/systems. ATT and T-mobile phones use GSM. AT commands - ATtention commands. A command language for manipulating modems. Still in use in many phone radios today. Basically every acronym listed is in existing use and generally still widely used. So there is good reason for people who work with them to know them. And it doesn't take a network technician to know what all of these mean. I'm a lowly classic asp web developer, and everyone of these was familiar to me. therefore no one new has a good reason to know the acronyms These acronyms allow me to talk with the network people. In the same way them knowing what HTML, CSS, JS, PNG, JPEG, PS, etc are allows them to work with me. It's not absolutely required, but it greases the wheel.