Pads

First drawings of a Pad, 1994

The almost ubiquitous Alliance technology. Seem to be most akin to the Stepping Disks from Larry Niven's Known Space universe, rather than the Star Trek teleporters.

They can be used to send people and material to a location that does not have a receiving Pad, but you have to have a Pad to go from the location.

Range is planetary, and orbital. I don't believe we've seen interplanetary distances done? Hypothetically pads can be chained between stations.

The Chatcaava have some equivalent of Pads, though it is unclear whether it has similar properties to the Alliance version.