Recently the 3GPP met to discuss NB-LTE, CIoT, LPWA, and plans for GSM channels. Also on the agenda were discussions around FDMA, GMSK, OFDMA and RAN WG1. Apparently, advances to MTC, D2D, and 3d/FD-MIMO were also announced in the recent meeting. Some of us may just be waiting to attend that meeting where we figure out what all of these acronyms actually mean.

In this blog post, we’ll simply provide you with a glossary for the Internet of Things (IoT) and all of its abstract acronyms so that you don’t end up with a Dilbert moment.

IoT Acronyms - A glossary for the Internet of Things

IoT Internet of Things
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project
AP Access Point
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access
DL Downlink
DSSS Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
EIRP Equivalent Isotropically Radiated Power
FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access
GMSK Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
HSPA High Speed Packet Access
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IP Internet Protocol
ISM Industrial, Scientific and Medical Radio Bands
LAN Local Area Network
Local RF Local Radio Frequency
LPWA Low Power Wide Area
LTE Long Term Evolution
LTE-MTC Long Term Evolution – Machine-Type Communication
M2M Machine-to-Machine
MAC Media Access Control
NB-LTE Narrow Band Long Term Evolution
PDU Protocol Data Unit or Power Distribution Unit
PHY Physical Layer connecting to link layer
RACM Reference Application Communication Module
RAN Radio Access Network
REST Representational State Transfer
RPMA Random Phase Multiple Access
SIM Subscriber Identity Module
TCO Total Cost of Ownership
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UL Uplink
UNB Ultra Narrow Band
UTMS Universal Telecommunications System
WAN Wide Area Network