All > Technology > Telecommunications
A standard compression algorithm, used in digital communications systems of the European digital hierarchy, to optimize, i.e., modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. Note: The wide dynamic range of speech does not lend itself well to efficient linear digital encoding. A-law encoding effectively reduces the dynamic range of the signal, thereby increasing the coding efficiency and resulting in a signal-to-distortion ratio that is superior to that obtained by linear encoding for a given number of bits.
- Browse Related Terms: a-law algorithm, bit synchronization, mu-law (µ-law) algorithm, return-to-zero (RZ), signal element, SLIP, SONET, synchronization bit, synchronization code, synchronous optical network, synchronous transport signal level 1 (STS-1)