| Acronym | Meaning | Primary Applicability | Normative Reference |
| ACK | Acknowledgement | Transport and other layers | TCP/IP, for example. RFC 793 |
| ACL | Access Control List | Security, Application layer | Access control list, Cisco Overview |
| ADSL | Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line | Telecom | ITU-T G.992.5 Annex M, for example |
| AES | Advanced Encryption Standard | Security | U.S. FIPS PUB 197 |
| ANSI | American National Standards Institute | Organization | ANSI |
| ARP | Address Resolution Protocol | Link layer | RFC 1122 |
| ASA | Adaptive Security Appliance (Cisco) | Hardware | Cisco Overview |
| ATM | Asynchronous Transfer Mode | Telecom | ATM cell description |
| BGP | Border Gateway Protocol (routing protocol) | Application layer, Routers | RFC 4271 |
| BSS | Basic Service Set (Wi-Fi) | Wireless | IEEE Std 802.11-2007 |
| CAT | CATegory (e.g. CAT-5 cable) | Physical layer | ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.1-2001 |
| CCDA | Cisco Certified Design Associate | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| CCITT (obs.) | Standards organization that has been replaced by ITU-T | Organization | ITU-T |
| CCENT | Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| CCIP | Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| CCNA | Cisco Certified Network Associate | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| CCNP | Cisco Certified Network Professional | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| CDP | Cisco Discovery Protocol | Link layer, proprietary | CDP Packet Format |
| CHAP | Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol (PPP) | Security, Telecom | RFC 1194 |
| cHDLC | Cisco (proprietary) HDLC | Link layer, proprietary | Cisco Technology Handbook: HDLC |
| CIDR | Classless Inter-Domain Routing | Architecture | RFC 1518 RFC 1519 |
| CIR | Committed Information Rate (Frame Relay) | Telecom | RFC 1490 RFC 1973 RFC 2427 |
| CLI | Command Line Interpreter | Hardware | Catalyst 6500 Series Command Reference, 7.6, for example |
| COAX | CO-Axial | Physical layer | MIL SPEC M17/2-RGxxx Link is to a list of coax cable types |
| CPE | Customer Premises Equipment | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| CRC | Cyclical Redundancy Check | Link and other layers | 24 References here. |
| CRC-16-CCITT | Cyclical Redundancy Check (X.25, HDLC) | Link layers | Reference on CRC page. |
| CSMA/CA | Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Avoidance | Wireless | IEEE Std 802.11 Downloads |
| CSMA/CD | Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detection | Physical layer | IEEE Std 802.3TM-2002 |
| CSU/DSU | Channel Service Unit / Data Service Unit | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| DCE | Data Communications Equipment | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| DEC (obs.) | Digital Equipment Corporation | Organization | Purchased by Compaq in 1998. Merged with Hewlett-Packard 2002. |
| DES | Data Encryption Standard (obs. See AES) | Security | Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) FIPS-46-3 |
| DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol | Application layer, Internet Layer | RFC 2131 and others |
| DLCI | Data-Link Circuit Identifier (Frame Relay) | Telecom | RFC 1490 Cisco Technology Handbook: Frame Relay |
| DNS | Domain Name Server | Architecture | RFC 1034, RFC 1035 |
| DNS | Domain Name System | Application layer | Over 30 RFCs here. |
| DRAM | Dynamic Random Access Memory | Hardware | |
| DSL | Digital Subscriber Line | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| DSLAM | Digital Subscriber Line Access Muliplexor | Telecom | Telecom Glossary (proposed) |
| DTE | Data Terminal Equipment | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| EHA | Ethernet Hardware Address (MAC address) | Link layer | IEEE Std 802 IEEE OUI Assignments |
| EIA | Electronics Industry Alliance | Organization | EIA |
| EIGRP | Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol | Internet Layer | Cisco Doc ID: 16406 |
| EOF | End Of Frame (HDLC, etc.) | Link layer | HDLC framing |
| ESS | Extended Service Set (Wi-Fi group) | Wireless | IEEE Std 802.11-2007 |
| FCC | Federal Communications Commission (US) | Organization | US FCC |
| FCS | Frame Check Sequence (Ethernet) | Link layer | Ethernet Frame IEEE Std 802.3 |
| FDDI | Fiber Distributed Data Interface | Link layer | American National Standards Institute X3T9.5 (now X3T12),ISO/IEC 9314-x |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol | Application layer | RFC 959 and others |
| GBIC | Gigabit Interface Converter | Hardware | Seagate Specification |
| Gbps | Gigabit per second | Physical layer | Gigabit per second |
| HDLC | High-level Data Link Control | Link layer | ISO 13239 |
| HSSI | High-Speed Serial Interface | Physical layer (Cisco proprietary) | Cisco Technology Handbook: HSSI |
| http | HyperText Transport Protocol | Application layer | W3C Change History for HTTP |
| https | HyperText Transport Protocol Secure | Transport and other layers | SSL 3.0 Specification |
| IANA | Internet Assigned Number Authority | Organization | IANA |
| ICMP | Internet Control Message Protocol | Internet Layer | RFC 792 |
| ICND | Introducing Cisco Network Design | IT Professional Certification | Cisco Career Certification |
| IDF | Intermediate Distribution Frame | Physical layer | Structured Cabling or Telecom Glossary |
| IDS | Intrusion Detection System | Security | Cisco Product Index |
| IEC | Commission Electrotechnique Internationale (French) | Organization | IEC |
| IEEE | Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers | Organization | IEEE |
| IETF | Internet Engineering Task Force | Organization | IETF |
| IMAP | Internet Message Access Protocol | Application layer | RFC 3501 |
| IOS | Internetwork Operating System (CISCO) | Hardware | Cisco IOS |
| IP | Internet Protocol | Internet Layer | RFC 791 RFC 1606 |
| IPS | Intrusion Prevention System | Security | "NIST - Guide to Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS)". 2007-02. Retrieved 2010-08-24. |
| IS-IS | Intermediate System to Intermediate System (routing protocol) | Internet Layer | ISO/IEC 10589:2002 |
| ISDN | Integrated Services Digital Network | Telecom | IEC Area 716-xx |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| ITU-T | International Telecommunications Union | Organization | http://www.itu.int |
| Kbps | Kilobit per second | Physical layer | Kilobit_per_second |
| LAN | Local Area Network | Link and other layers | Telecom Glossary |
| LAPB | Link Access Procedure, Balanced (x.25) | Telecom | ITU-T Recommendation X.222 |
| LAPF | Link-Access Procedure for Frame relay | Telecom | RFC 1490 |
| LLC | Logical Link Control | Link layer | Telecom Glossary |
| MAC | Media Access Control | Link layer | IEEE Std 802.3 and 802.11, for example |
| MAN | Metropolitan Area Network | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| Mbps | Megabits per second | Physical layer | Megabit_per_second |
| MC | Multiple Choice | IT Professional Certification | About certification exams |
| MDF | Main Distribution Frame | Physical layer | Glossary See also Structured cabling |
| MIB | Management Information Base (SNMP) | Application layer | RFC 3418 |
| MTU | Maximum Transmission Unit | Multiple layers | |
| NAC | Network Access Control or Network Admission Control | Link and other layers | IEEE 802.1x |
| NACK | Negative Acknowledgement | Link and other layers | TCP/IP, for example. RFC 793 |
| NAT | Network Address Translation | Internet Layer | Cisco Internet Protocol Journal: A look Inside Network Address Translators |
| NBMA | Non-Broadcast Multiple Access (e.g. Frame Relay ATM) | Telecom | See ATM, Frame Relay and X.25, for examples. |
| NIC | Network Interface Card | Physical layer | Telecom Glossary |
| NRZ | Non-Return to Zero | Physical layer | Federal Standard 1037C |
| NRZI | Non-Return to Zero Inverted | Physical layer | Federal Standard 1037C |
| NVRAM | Non-Volatile RAM | Hardware | Sample vendor data here |
| OSI | Open System Interconnect (joint ISO and ITU standard) | Organization | ISO/IEC 9594-5:2005 Open Systems Interconnection Protocol Specifications |
| OSPF | Open Shortest Path First (routing protocol) | Internet Layer | RFC 2238 |
| OUI | Organization Unique Identifier | Link and other layers | IEEE OUI Assignments |
| PAP | Password Authentication Protocol (PPP) | Security | RFC 1334 |
| PAT | Port Address Translation | Internet Layer | RFC 1918 |
| PC | Personal Computer (host) | Hardware | [4]Link |
| PCM | Pulse Code Modulation | Physical layer | ITU-T G.711 |
| PDU | Protocol Data Unit (such as segment, packet, frame, etc.) | Multiple layers | Fed Std 1037C |
| PIX | Private Internet eXchange (Cisco, obsolete) | Hardware | Cisco Overview |
| POP3 | Post Office Protocol, version 3 | Application layer | RFC 1939 |
| POP | Point-Of-Presence | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| POST | Power-On Self Test | Hardware | Cisco Catalyst 2800 User Guide, for example |
| POTS | Plain Old Telephone Service | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| PPP | Point-to-Point Protocol | Telecom | RFC 1661 |
| PPTP | Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol | Telecom | RFC 2637 |
| PTT | Public Telephone and Telegraph | Telecom | Telecom Glossary or Free Dictionary |
| PVST | Per-VLAN Spanning Tree | Link layer | Cisco's introduction to Spanning Tree Protocol |
| RADIUS | Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service | Security | RFC 2865 |
| RAM | Random Access Memory | Physical layer | Telecom Glossary |
| RARP | Reverse ARP | Link layer | RFC 903 |
| RFC | Request for Comments | Multiple layers | IETF's RFC Index |
| RIP | Routing Information Protocol | Internet Layer | RFC 2453, for RIP version 2 |
| RLL | Run-Length Limited | Physical layer | RLL is used in a wide range of encodings. |
| ROM | Read-Only Memory | Hardware | Telecom Glossary |
| RSTP | Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol | Link layer | IEEE 802.1w - Rapid Reconfiguration of Spanning Tree |
| RTP | Real-time Transport Protocol | Application layer | RFC 3550 |
| SDLC | Synchronous Data Link Control | Link layer | Cisco Technology Handbook: SDLC and Derivatives |
| SDM | Security Device Manager (CISCO software) | Security | Cisco Router and Security Device Manager |
| SFD | Start-of-Frame Delimiter (Ethernet, HDLC, etc.) | Link layer | IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet), or RFC 2687 (HDLC), for examples |
| SFP | Small Form-factor Pluggable | Hardware | Seagate Specification |
| S-HTTP | Secure HTTP (rarely used) | Transport and other layers | RFC 2660 See also https |
| SLARP | Serial Line ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) | Link and other layers | Archived Cisco Serial Line Encapulation extension |
| SLIP | Serial Line Internet Protocol (obs.) | Telecom | RFC 1055 |
| SMTP | Simple Mail Transfer Protocol | Application layer | RFC 5321 |
| SNA | Systems Network Architecture (IBM) | Multiple layers | SNA Protocol Suite |
| SNAP | SubNet Access Protocol | Link layer | IEEE 802 Overview and Architecture |
| SNMP | Simple Network Management Protocol | Application layer | RFC 1155, RFC 3410 thruRFC 3418 and others |
| SOF | Start Of Frame | Link layer | IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet), or RFC 2687 (HDLC), for examples |
| SRAM | Static Random Access Memory | Hardware | PC Guide's Definition |
| SSH | Secure Shell | Application layer | RFC 4252 |
| SSID | Service Set Identifier (Wi-Fi) | Wireless | IEEE 802.11 |
| STP | Spanning Tree Protocol | Link layer | Cisco's Introduction to Spanning Tree Protocol |
| SYN (TCP) | Synchronization | Link and other layers | RFC 793 and many others |
| TCP/IP | Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol | Transport layer | RFC 793 and many others |
| TDM | Time Division Multiplexing | Physical layer | Fed Std 1037C |
| TELCO | TELephone COmpany | Telecom | Dictionary |
| TFTP | Trivial File Transfer Protocol | Application layer | RFC 1350 |
| TIA | Telecommunications Industry Alliance | Organization | Telecommunications Industry Association |
| UDP | User Datagram Protocol | Transport layer | RFC 768 |
| USB | Universal Serial Bus | Physical and other layers | USB 3.0 Specification |
| UTP | Unshielded Twisted Pair | Physical | Many versions are defined by TIA, such as: TIA-568-B |
| VC | Virtual Circuit | Transport and other layers | Telecom Glossary |
| VLAN | Virtual Local Area Network | Link layer | IEEE 802.1Q |
| VLSM | Variable Length Subnet Masking | Architecture | RFC 1518 RFC 1519 |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network | Application layer | Virtual Private Network Consortium |
| VTP | VLAN Trunking Protocol (Cisco) | Link layer | Cisco Introduction to VTP |
| VTY | Virtual Terminal (Telnet) | Application layer | RFC 495, List of terminal emulators |
| W3C | World Wide Web Consortium | Organization | W3C |
| WAN | Wide-Area Network | Telecom | Telecom Glossary |
| WEP | Wireless Equivalent Privacy | Wireless | IEEE 802.11 |
| Wi-Fi | IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi Alliance) | Wireless | Wi-Fi Alliance |
| WPA | Wi-Fi Protected Access | Security | IEEE 802.11i |
| www | World Wide Web | Architecture | W3C Consortium |