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Interview with IMTC SIP Parity AG Leader – Charles Eckel

April 22, 2013 by 1 Comment

Charles Eckel

We continue our series of interviews with IMTC members by speaking with Charles Eckel, the Technical Leader II, Media Experience and Analytics at Cisco, and the IMTC SIP Parity Activity Group Leader.

IMTC: How many companies participate in your group today?

Charles Eckel [CE]: We had 12 participating companies from SIP Parity at the last SuperOp Event: Acme Packet, Avaya, BlueJeans, Cisco, Huawei, LG, Lifesize, Magor Corporation, Polycom, Avaya, Teliris and Vidyo.

IMTC: What is the key technology you are testing and what role does it play in UC and communication in general?

CE:  The SIP Parity Activity Group focuses on multimedia telecommunications applications, including providing a video profile for SIP that matches all the capabilities of H.323.conferencing.

IMTC: What standards are being tested?

CE: SIP (RFC 3261), SDP (RFC 4566), RTP (RFC 3551), and H.264 (RFC 6184)

IMTC: What is the group value to the industry?

CE: We do the following:

  • We organize interoperability SIP Parity test efforts, both virtual and face-to-face. This is done in cooperation and coordination with both the Conferencing Interoperability Activity Group and with SIPit (where practical).
  • We provide a forum for members to agree on an overall SIP profile for video. The objective is to bring it to full-feature parity with H.323 video communications.
  • We educate members on the most recent developments in SIP standards and market evolution.

IMTC: Why are you a member of this group and what value does it bring to your company?

CE: Third party interoperability is important to Cisco, and this is the best place for dealing with interoperability issues related to enterprise video conferencing.

IMTC: What were the most important achievements of your group in 2012? How did it support the industry?

CE: Among our achievements:

  • Security Best Practice liaison review period and addressed comments.
  • SuperOp! 2012 characterization of SIP Video Profile and Role Based Video.
  • Best Practices, and ad-hoc testing of Security Best Practices.
  • We began investigation of potential areas for SIP Parity AG/PSS AG interworking.
  • SIP Video Profile Best Practice as IMTC document approved by SIP Parity AG.
  • Draft version circulated and comments received.
  • IETF BFCPBIS nearing completion of BFCP via UDP.
  • The Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP).
  • Session Description Protocol (SDP) Format for Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP) Streams.

IMTC: What are your plans for 2013?

CE: There are a few: 

  • SuperOp! 2013 characterization of SIP Video Profile, SIP Role Based Video, SIP Security Best Practices.
  • Update Role Based Video Best Practice and Test Case documents based on output of IETF BFCPBIS WG.
  • Publish SIP Video Profile Best Practice as an IMTC document (available to IMTC members), which aims to list the use cases that are associated with the bandwidth, flow control, intra-frame request functionalities, and to provide recommendations on best current practice in this field. This document should serve as a reference for video services based on SIP/SDP, from the point of view of a user-agent with video capacity.
  • Publish Role Based Video Best Practice as IMTC document, which describes the best practices for implementing role-based video stream (RBVS) functionality in SIP that is comparable to H.239 for H.323 systems. In particular, it covers the use of video for content sharing, including floor control, alongside main video..
  • Update SIP Security Best Practice and Test Cases documents based on output of IETF BFCPBIS WG.
  • Publish Security Best Practice as an IMTC Document, which describes best practices for implementing security in SIP-based video conferencing end devices.

IMTC: What do you think will change in your field or technology you are testing in the future?

CE: Protocols and implementations will continue to improve and evolve, and there will be blending of what was traditionally enterprise-specific with that which was traditionally consumer focused (e.g. BYOD).

IMTC: What kind of value do you think IMTC brings to your company?

CE: The SIP Parity group is the best place for dealing with interoperability issues related to enterprise video conferencing. The best practices and SuperOp events are very useful to moving our implementations and those of the rest of the industry forward.

IMTC: Thank you, Charles, for the interview.

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Interview With Bo Jönsson – IMS CO-AG Leader

February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

We continue our a series of interviews with IMTC members, this time with Bo Jönsson, the co-ag leader of the IMS Activity Group at IMTC and the standardization manager of terminal testing at Ericsson AB.

IMTC Blog: Bo, thanks a lot for your time! How many companies participate in your group today?

Bo: 9 companies are participating in the group today: Ericsson, France Telecom, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, RADVISION, Samsung, Sony Mobile, and ST-Ericsson.

IMTC Blog: What is the key technology you are testing and what role does it play in UC and communication in general?

Bo: IMS voice/video according GSMA recommendations PRDs IR.92 and IR.94. This VoLTE initiative is based on 3GPP and the LTE radio access technology which is becoming the basis for all future mobile systems.
3GPP defined telecommunication and IP-based multimedia services are well recognized for mobile and personal communications.

IMTC Blog: What is the group value to the industry? And why does it operate in IMTC?

Bo: To provide IOT possibilities for 3GPP defined IP-based multimedia services. IMTC is a well-recognized organization for interoperability testing.

IMTC Blog: Why are you a member of this group and what value does it bring to your company?

Bo: The enhancement of telecommunication is a key interest for our company. Device IOT testing of 3GPP defined IP-based multimedia services and associated GSMA profiles such as IR.92 (VoLTE) and IR.94 (Video) is an important area to achieve this.

IMTC Blog: What were the most important achievements of your group in 2012? How did it support the industry?

Bo: There are few:

  •  The activity and number of companies has increased.
  • The test documentation for IR.92 is enhanced with more test scenario e.g. SRVCC and IMS Emergency.
  • We have also introduced test documentation for IMS conversational video service according GSMA PRD IR.94.

IMTC Blog: What are your plans for 2013?

BO: We have 3 main goals for 2013:

  • Participate in the IMTC SuperOP! event.
  • Provide more face to face test opportunities.
  • Include GSMA PRD IR.39 “IMS Profile for High Definition Video Conference (HDVC) Service” in the scope for test documentation and face to face testing.

IMTC Blog: What do you think will change in your field or technology you are testing in the future?

Bo: 3GPP defined IP-based multimedia services will become more important for delivering audio, text, video and graphics direct to people in information based services.

IMTC Blog: What kind of value do you think IMTC brings to your company?

BO: IMTC is an organization for engineers that allows to take part of the telecommunication evolution and make it happen in real live testing environments.

We thank Bo for his time and look forward for the upcoming SuperOp! event.

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Filed Under: IMS, IMTC News, Interviews, Right, Technology insight Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

IMTC 2025 E-BOOK – Get it here!

December 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In the movie ‘Back to the Future’ Part Two, Michael J. Fox is sent to the year 2015 in order to save his future family from catastrophe. Since the movie was filmed in 1989, its writers had the difficult task of imagining what the future would look like. The result was a world filled with flying cars, highways that pass through the clouds, and interactive homes.

In 2012, it’s safe to say that their vision has yet to become a reality. Of course imagining what the future will look like is second nature to all of us. Science fiction has always been a popular genre since it offered a glimpse into the unknown.

But what if you could assemble a panel of experts to help you gaze into the future? What if you could learn what tomorrow will look like from the people shaping it today?

That’s exactly what we at IMTC have done. Twice.

On June 26, 2012, we held our bi-annual 2025 Virtual Conference, which revolved around the question: how will technology impact our lives in the year 2025?

In his introduction to the conference, IMTC President Anatoli Levine said, “We produced the first 2025 event in 2010 as a sort of ‘crystal ball’. The goal of the 2025 event is to be able to look back and see how visionary we were and how close to this vision the technology actually became.”

In order to answer the question of what 2025 will look like, we brought together thought leaders from a variety of industries, all of which have a major affect on our daily life, be it in the way we live (our home environment), the way we work (our office environment), our health, our methods of transportation, and even the way we shop.

Following the success of the second 2025 IMTC Virtual Conference, we began exploring the possibility of creating a book that would share our vision for the future with our peers in the industry. The result is an interactive eBook that is now available for free download at the App Store.

The IMTC eBook is comprised of the predictions of thought leaders from today’s most innovative companies on how technology will impact our lives in 2025. These include, amongst others, Cisco, Samsung, Avaya and Viaccess-Orca.

While the subjects addressed by the eBook range from telemedicine to smart cars, and from the work environment to shopping, its main themes are cloud computing, automated data collection and personalization, as these have only just begun to shape our world.

The 2025 IMTC eBook will enable you to learn what tomorrow will look like today. Thus, it is much more than a “crystal ball”, it is a roadmap to innovation and success.


About the writer: IMTC
Filed Under: 2025, IMTC News, Industry News, Right

Interview with Dr. István Sebestyén

November 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In the past, we have used this blog as a platform for discussing topics which are relevant to the field of telecommunications such as new trends in the market and innovative technological developments. Now we would like to use our blog in order to introduce you, our readers, to the IMTC members. We believe that this will enable you to better understand who we are and what it is we do at IMTC. And what better way to do so than with a series of interviews with IMTC members.

This week, we spoke to Dr. István Sebestyén, Secretary General of Ecma International. István joined Ecma after working for 21 years in the field of standardization at Siemens where he served as Director of Standards specializing in Multimedia and Enterprise Communication networks. Previously he had worked in various standardization bodies such as ITU, ISQ, DIJ and the IMTC of which he was also the president.

Hello István. I know that you hold close to twelve patents. Could you tell us a bit about them?

Yes with pleasure. I did the patents when I was at Siemens and when I noticed that patenting in standardization (especially on multimedia standards) was becoming a frequent occurrence. Filing for patents is a bit like betting on the future of technology since you file patents based on anticipation. Whether or not your bet was a good one doesn’t really matter, what does matter is that it is very easy to get a patent. I hope its different today. Anyway, when I filed for those patents it was a defensive move on behalf of Siemens and they own the patent, not me personally.

As a former president of IMTC, how important are the IMTC activities for the industry?

They are very important for the industry, as they cover marketing, education and interoperability testing. Those things are usually not done by Standardization Bodies. IMTC hosts interoperability testing events and demonstrations throughout the world in order to better the services offered to end users. It is an important function which enables manufacturers and service providers working on novel products to ensure the quality of their future products. In addition, the scope of the interop testing offered by IMTC is something that no company could perform on its own.

Currently, you are the Secretary General of ECMA International. Can you tell us more about it? What is the difference between organizations like IMTC and ECMA?

The difference is exactly what I have outlined above. We set standards, but we do not do deal with other aspects such as education and marketing. That’s the main difference, we focus on the standards themselves, IMTC focuses on all the rest.

Looking at the video conferencing industry today, can you give us a prediction for the future of video communications? How will the video conferencing world look in 5 years’ time? What will it look like in 2025?

I have no idea! There are many different possible scenarios. We may continue on with what we are doing today, only with faster and better media coding, more integration with the web, etc. The problem is that we have no standards, except for basic internet standards, and that everything goes through downloading and updates like Skype. But where are we headed? I really can’t say.

No one can predict the future of telecommunications, but we at IMTC like to try. Be sure to come back next week for another interview with a different IMTC member.

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IMTC Announces 18th Annual SuperOp!

October 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

IMTC Announces 18th Annual SuperOp! Interoperability Testing Event for Multimedia, Products and Services! [Read more...]

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Filed Under: IMTC News
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