Companies tests 3G video telephony

July 27, 2004

Eleven major companies engaged in mobile multimedia telecommunications met earlier this month in southern Sweden, for what was to be the international 3G video telephony interoperability testing event held for the first time. The event was hosted by Ericsson at their facility in Lund, and was organized by the 3G-324M Activity Group working under the auspices of the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC). It consisted of four days of tightly scheduled sessions validating handsets, prototype systems and protocol stacks in 50 test cases plus all scenarios for establishing voice and video communication. This interoperability activity is expected to provide a basis for the development of future advanced communication services on mobile networks, including mobile videoconferencing.

"This was the first international 3G video telephony face-to-face interoperability testing event held in history," said Albert Wong of Dilithium Networks, Co-Chairman of the IMTC Activity Group, adding: "Companies around the globe were very enthusiastic about the event and testing was very productive. This forms an important milestone to the successful launch of 3G-324M-based video telephony services worldwide."

3G-324M is the standard for 3G video telephony service. The development of 3G-324M standard based equipment and services appeared to be slow over the past two years when most vendors and network providers concentrated on H.323/H.320, which from a working principle point of view are quite similar at point-to-point operation. The event in Lund was attended by Dilithium Networks, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, PacketVideo, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sasken Communication Technologies, Sharp and Siemens.

"This face-to-face event has given a boost to the group since for first time all participants were able to test their equipment in a real 3G environment," said Sebastian Purreiter of Siemens, co-chair of IMTC 3G-324M activity group. "Nevertheless, ongoing activities will also continue with virtual interoperability test events using digitally switched ISDN lines for its ease of setup."

The group expects to continue this successful activity with another face-to face event in September in Lillestrom, Norway, organized under the leadership of the IMTC. Currently the group is composed of 13 actively participating members, which are Dilithium Networks, Emuzed, Ericsson, Motorola, NMS Communications, Nokia, PacketVideo, Qualcomm, RADVISION, Samsung, Sasken Communication Technologies, Sharp and Siemens.