Lucent Automates Distribution of G.723.1 Speech Coder, Breaks Logjam for "Voice on the Internet" Software.

MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 10, 1997--Hoping to accelerate adoption of the worldwide standard for voice on the Internet, the Lucent Technologies elemedia venture unit today said it would begin delivering standards-based software plug-ins direct to consumers via the Internet. With this plan, elemedia will eliminate many of the software licensing bottlenecks that exist in the Internet telephony industry today.

A number of companies hold patents relevant to G.723.1, an international standard established by the International Telecommunications Union and the speech coder recently selected by the Voice over IP (VoIP) Activity Group, part of the International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium (IMTC), as the preferred speech coder for Internet telephony over modem connections.

The DSP Group offers package licensing of patents owned by four companies; however, up until now, vendors have had to negotiate additional licenses with Lucent Technologies and several other companies before they could include G.723.1 in products they ship to customers.

Under the terms of this plan, elemedia will begin to work with Internet telephony application developers to distribute this standard voice coding software directly to end consumers, freeing the application developers from the need to negotiate separate licensing agreements. This will enable developers to use G.723.1 in their applications through a "two-stop shop" method by working with only the DSP Group and elemedia.

"We've completed patent licensing arrangements with the known remaining companies," said Joe Mele, president of the elemedia unit. "By offering electronic delivery of our G.723.1 codec directly to consumers in partnership with application developers, we can eliminate the need for our customers to negotiate individual patent licenses with these companies. This will simplify the process for vendors and accelerate adoption and use of the G.723.1 standard for voice on the Net by consumers."

Blake Irving, general manager, Internet client and collaboration division, Microsoft Corp., said, "G.723.1 is the international standard codec for voice on the Internet. elemedia's plan will help break the patent licensing logjam and lead to broad use of voice on the Internet."

Jeff Pulver, president of pulver.com and leading Internet telephony analyst, said, "We welcome elemedias initiative to simplify the process for delivering G.723.1 to end customers. The long discussed 'two-stop shop' is now a reality and will help make standards-based voice on the Net ubiquitous."

Lucent Technologies (LU) designs, builds, and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. For more information about Lucent Technologies, headquartered at Murray Hill, N.J., visit the company's website at http://www.lucent.com.

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