New ITU standard to speed up 3G video calling

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 24 August 2006 12:30

Business IT - Technology

After 18 months of work the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has developed a new standard that promises to reduce the time needed to set up video calls in 3G networks, a development expected to boost take up of 3G video calling.
The new standard, Annex K of Recommendation H.324, also known as Media Oriented Negotiation Acceleration (MONA), is the result of over 18 months of industry discussions and collaboration between The ITU-T, 3GPP and the International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium (IMTC).

According to Dilithium Networks, co-editor of Annex K along with PacketVideo: "Long session set-up times are recognised as one of the limiting factors for consumer acceptance of video telephony services. Annex K of H.324 contains a range of techniques to substantially improve session se-tup times, reducing call set-up negotiation time to the equivalent of a voice call."

Dr Marwan Jabri, CTO of Dilithium Networks said: "Dilithium has pioneered the development of video telephony call set-up time improvements and techniques and we are pleased to see our technologies form the foundation and substrate of Annex K. We have worked closely with operators and other key players to ensure that these techniques meet deployment and service requirements, and are convinced this unified standard will further boost uptake of video telephony services."

Dilithium Networks claims to be "the leader in 3G video telephony solutions for the world’s mobile and broadband industries." It originated in Australia but is now headquartered in the USA. Jabri, a professor of computer engineering at the University of Sydney from 1996 to 2001 was a co-founder and the company still maintains R&D facilities in Sydney.