{{short description, Signal that activates a device via a telephone connection
Wake-on-Ring (WOR), sometimes referred to as Wake-on-Modem (WOM), is a specification that allows supported computers and devices to "wake up" or turn on from a sleeping, hibernating or "soft off" state (e.g. ACPI state G1 or G2), and begin operation.
The basic premise is that a special
signal
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
is sent over phone lines to the computer through its
dial-up modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
, telling it to fully power-on and begin operation. Common uses were
archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
s and BBSes, although hobbyist use was significant.
Fax
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
machines use a similar system, in which they are mostly idle until receiving an incoming fax signal, which spurs operation.
This style of
remote operation
Teleoperation (or remote operation) indicates operation of a system or machine at a distance. It is similar in meaning to the phrase "remote control" but is usually encountered in research, academia and technology. It is most commonly associat ...
has mostly been supplanted by Wake-on-LAN, which is newer but works in much the same way.
See also
*
ACPI
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto con ...