New ITU-T Recommendation for Non-Intrusive Voice Quality Assessment - Psytechnics, Opticom and SwissQual Win the ITU-T Competition
Ipswich, UK, Erlangen, Germany and Zuchwil, Switzerland (ots)
Psytechnics, Opticom and SwissQual today announced that their jointly developed non-intrusive algorithm for voice quality assessment has been selected by the ITU-T as the future recommendation.
In 2001 the ITU-T determined the need for a non-intrusive voice quality measurement and announced an open competition in spring 2002 for the most accurate algorithm over a wide range of network conditions. Five companies declared their intent to compete. During the summer of 2003 Psytechnics, Opticom and SwissQual agreed to combine their experience, expertise and individual models to create the best possible algorithm. Each company contributed its own algorithm, Psytechnics with NiQA, SwissQual with NiNA and Opticom with P3SQM (jointly developed with KPN). After a considerable testing and verification process, the collaborative effort from the three companies was unanimously selected by the ITU-T as the future recommendation.
The joint algorithm will open up new possibilities for network operators and vendors to determine the operational voice quality based on monitoring live calls. The benefit of this technology is that no test signal is needed and only one point of the telecommunication link is required to assess the voice quality.
"We are very pleased with the performance of the algorithm as it proved not only to meet but also exceed the minimum requirements defined by ITU-T," said Pero Juric, VP of Systems Engineering at SwissQual. "It will enable almost unlimited voice quality monitoring possibilities when integrated into equipment such as switches, Voice-Gateways, VQE's or even mobile phones."
"We've created a very exciting measurement capability for the industry," said Dr. Michael Hollier, CTO of Psytechnics. "I anticipate that it will become common within network management systems in one to three years."
"We are delighted that we have solved the engineering limitations of having to set up test calls and achieve accurate voice quality scoring with this innovative measure," said Michael Keyhl, CEO of Opticom.
Evaluation licenses will be available in January 2004, with commercial licenses to follow shortly thereafter.
About SwissQual, Psytechnics and Opticom
SwissQual, Psytechnics and Opticom are leading designers and integrators of algorithms for voice, video and audio quality assessment. The companies, operating independently of each other, also offer complete solutions for mobile, VoIP and fixed network testing and monitoring.
Contact:
SwissQual AG
E-Mail: tomas.ahnebrink@swissqual.com
Tel. +41/32/685'08'30
Internet: http://www.swissqual.com
Psytechnics
E-Mail: iain.wood@psytechnics.com
Tel. +44/1473-261-838
Internet: htpp://www.psytechnics.com
Opticom
E-Mail: mk@opticom.de
Tel. +49/9131-691-160
Internet: http://www.opticom.de