Analog phone lines. Analog signals. Digital security. Digital PBX. Analog-to-digital adapters. What does it all mean? In the telecom world, understanding analog versus digital isn't as simple as comparing one technology to another. It depends on what product—and in some cases, which product feature—you happen to be talking about. Analog at a glance As a technology, analog is the process of taking an audio or video signal (in most cases, the human voice) and translating it into electronic pulses. Digital on the other hand is breaking the signal into a binary format where the audio or video data is represented by a series of "1"s and "0"s. Simple enough when it's the device—analog or digital phone, fax, modem, or likewise—that does all the converting for you. Is one technology better than the other? Analog technology has been around for decades. It's not that complicated a concept and it's fairly inexpensive to use. That's why we can buy a $20 telephone or at one time could watch a few…