ITU Drives Development of Multimedia Systems

Geneva, 20 October 1997 — The ITU has initiated approval of a number of new Recommendations that will have the effect of speeding the delivery of multimedia and interactive applications to desktops all around the world.The new Recommendations, which cover the areas of videoconferencing, Internet ‘telephony’, text conversation and the use of ATM in multimedia systems, were accepted at a meeting of ITU-T Study Group 16 Working Parties, held in Sunriver, Oregon, USA last September. The meeting, hosted by the Intel Corporation, attracted more than 200 technical experts from around the world.

Hearing and speech impaired to benefit from new standards

The meeting agreed on two new Recommendations concerning text conversation.

The first Recommendation, called T.140, defines a universal presentation-level protocol for text conversation which will work with all multimedia protocols and with the existing standard for text telephony, V.18. The second, known as T.134, is a companion to T.140 and defines a simple data protocol for text conversation in a data conferencing environment. Support for the T.140 Recommendation has also been added to the H.324 Recommendation which defines multimedia communication over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). These two Recommendations are expected to greatly improve the lives of those reliant on text-based conversation systems, such as the hearing and speech impaired.

The Rapporteur for the work on these new standards, Mr Gunnar Hellström of Sweden, said "The results we have achieved are very important. By providing standardized video, text and voice conversation services, users will be able to choose whichever combination supports their system capabilities.

"Our work represents a great step forward for users who suffer from hearing- or speech-related problems. These people, who in the past have suffered from a fragmented market of incompatible text telephony systems, will benefit greatly from having global standards on which future systems can be based. And, given the huge and growing popularity of Internet-based ‘chat’ systems, it’s clear that many other users will also benefit from our work on these new Recommendations," said Mr Hellström.

Approval of PCM modems standard rescheduled for January-February 98

The Study Group 16 Working Party meeting also made considerable progress on the new Recommendation for PCM modems (also known as 56k modems). Because these new modems are designed for connections which are digital at one end and have only one analogue-to-digital conversion, they are expected to be widely used for new applications such as Internet and on-line service access. The commencement of the formal approval process for this Recommendation is now rescheduled for the next meeting of Study Group 16, in January-February 1998, with final approval expected in September of that year.

Multimedia conferencing applications soon to be available on mobile terminals

In addition, the meeting forwarded for approval extensions of ITU-T Recommendation H.324 (videoconferencing over standard telephones) which will allow it to support mobile terminal applications. H.324 covers terminals using the PSTN to carry real-time voice, data and video, or any combination of these, and forms the basis of videotelephony. The extension of the standard means that users with mobile equipment working in the field will be able to participate in multimedia conferences, exactly as if they were back in their own offices. Other extensions to the H.324 standard included implementations of the standard operating over geostationary satellite channels; and operation on ISDN circuits from the basic up to the primary rate.

Enhancements have also been made to the T.120 series of Recommendations, which cover data protocols for multimedia conferencing. The meeting finalized multicast adaptation extensions to the T.120 multipoint profile for products which require minimal data services, such as text telephony or pure audiovisual environments (in contrast to multimedia terminals encompassing audio, video and data services).

Agreement reached on standards for videoconferencing applications on the Internet

Significant results were also achieved in the field of packet-based multimedia communications described under Recommendation H.323 (videoconferencing over computer networks), with the finalization of new versions of H.323 and of the related Recommendation H.225, which describes the way in which audio, video, data and control mechanisms are associated, coded and packetized. The H.323 standard has already met with widespread industry support, and is very likely to form the basis of Internet telephony products.

In addition, a new Recommendation, called H.332, was finalized. H.332 describes how H.323 interactive videoconferences can be connected to a large number of uni-directional, multicast endpoints over the Internet. Draft Recommendations were also prepared on security for H.323 conferences (H.235), and on interoperability between H.323 and H.320 terminals (H.246). There are also new draft Recommendations on supplementary services in H.450.1, H.450.2, and H.450.3, which will provide call transfer and call diversion facilities for voice traffic travelling over packet-based networks such as LANs or WANs. All these Recommendations are also expected to start the approval process at the next meeting of Study Group 16 in January.

The Chairman of Study Group 16, Mr Pierre-André Probst of Switzerland, speaking at the close of the meeting on 12 September, said that he was very happy with the progress made so far in development of multimedia standards. "Study Group 16 is continuing to respond to the needs of the market by delivering global standards for commercial applications in a timely fashion. It is essential that we continue to work together and maintain the excellent spirit of cooperation between all the parties involved in the development of these standards – the operators, equipment manufacturers, IT industry, audio-visual entertainment industry, and of course, the users."

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