What is a POTS Codec?
POTS is an acronym for Plain Old Telephone Service, the familiar dialup telephone service that we use every day. (In some parts of the world, this is also called PSTN, Public Switched Telephone Network.) A codec is a coder-decoder. A signal goes into the “coder” part and is processed according to a given function. In this case, analog audio is converted to digital and then processed (digitally compressed) to reduce the size of the digital signal. On the “decoder” side, the opposite happens: the signal goes through digital decompression and then is converted back to analog audio. Functionally, POTS Codecs are used in pairs. At one location, a POTS Codec is used as a coder, sending the compressed digital signal to the other location via the POTS line where the second POTS Codec decodes the signal. Comrex POTS Codecs are fully bidirectional, allowing both units in the pair to transmit and receive high-quality audio.
