In telecommunication, a longitudinal voltage is a voltage induced or appearing along the length of a transmission medium.

Note 1: Longitudinal voltage may be effectively eliminated by using differential amplifiers or receivers that respond only to voltage differences, e.g., those between the wires that constitute a pair.

Note 2: Induced longitudinal voltages at low (power-line) frequencies can be greatly reduced by twisting parallel wires to create what are referred to as "twisted wire pairs." Synonym common-mode voltage.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C