communications standards review ...december 1995 vol. 6.8 copyright © csr 1995 1 communications...

December 1995 Vol. 6.8 Copyright © CSR 1995 1

COMMUNICATIONS STANDARDSREVIEW

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Volume 6, Number 8 December 1995

IN THIS ISSUE

The following reports of recent standards meetings represent the view of the reporter and are not official, authorized minutes of the meetings.

TR-29, Facsimile Systems and Equipment, October 16 – 18, 1995, San Diego, CA......................................... 3TR-29.1 Facsimile and File Transfer Protocols............................................................................... 4TR-29.2 Facsimile Digital Interfaces........................................................................................... 7TR-29.3 Audiographic Conferencing........................................................................................... 10TR-29.4 Secure Facsimile......................................................................................................... 10TR-29 Partial Meeting Roster, October 16 – 18, 1995, San Diego, CA.................................................. 12

The Very Low Bitrate Visual Telephony, October 17 – 20, 1995, Darmstadt, Germany.................................... 13Video Coder (H.263)................................................................................................................ 13Speech Coder (G.723).............................................................................................................. 14Multiplex (H.223).... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Communication Control (H.245)................................................................................................ 18System (H.324).... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Mobile (AV.32M)...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20H.263L Future Video Coder........................................................................................................ 22H.324 Testing... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22DTE/DCE Interface.................................................................................................................. 23Non-Conversational Services.................................................................................................... 23Ad Hoc Committees................................................................................................................. 24LBC Rapporteur’s Meeting Roster, October 17 – 20, 1995, Darmstadt, Germany..................................... 25

Experts Group Meeting On G.DSVD, October 23 – 25, 1995, Geneva, Switzerland......................................... 26G.DSVD Experts Meeting Roster, October 23 – 25, 1995, Geneva, Switzerland....................................... 29

TR-30, Data Transmission Systems and Equipment, November 13 – 17, 1995, Orlando, FL.............................. 30TR-30.1 Modems...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30TR-30.2, Data Transmission...................................................................................................... 32TR-30.3 Data Communication Equipment Evaluation and Network Interfaces.......................................... 33TR-30.4 DTE-DCE Protocols..................................................................................................... 35TR-30 Meeting Roster, November 13 – 17, 1995, Orlando, FL........................................................... 37

SG 15 Transmission Systems, WP 1 and WP 2, November 14 – 22, 1995, Geneva, Switzerland......................... 38SG 15 WP 1, Audiovisual/Multimedia........................................................................................... 38Q3/15 Multimedia Harmonization............................................................................................... 42Study Questions for the Next ITU Study Period................................................................................ 43JCG/AVMMS..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43SG 15 WP 2, Voice Processing and Operation Function..................................................................... 44SG 15 WP 1 and WP 2 Meeting Roster, November 14 – 22, 1995......................................................... 50

ETSI Terminal Equipment (TE) Plenary Meeting, November 27 – December 1, 1995, Antwerp, Belgium............... 52Multimedia Management Group (MMG)........................................................................................ 52SRC6 Implementation Starter Group............................................................................................ 52TE1, Telematic and retrieval services........................................................................................... 52

COMMUNICATIONS STANDARDS REVIEW – TELECOMMUNICATIONS

2 Vol. 6.8 Copyright © CSR 1995 December 1995

TE2, Telematic Terminals......................................................................................................... 53TE3, Message Handling System.................................................................................................. 54TE4, Audiovisual and Voice Terminals.......................................................................................... 54TE5, Terminal access to public networks....................................................................................... 55TE6, Directory Systems............................................................................................................ 56TE9, Card Terminals................................................................................................................ 56CEC related matters................................................................................................................. 57Standards Management............................................................................................................. 57Liaisons... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Other Highlights... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59ETSI TE Plenary Meeting Roster, November 27 – December 1, 1995, Antwerp, Belgium............................ 59

Acronym Glossary..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611996 Meeting Schedules as of December 21, 1995................................................................................. 63



REPORT OF TR-29, FACSIMILE SYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENTOCTOBER 16 – 18, 1995, SAN DIEGO, CA

TIA-536 and TIA-537, US G4 standards, are being balloted for rescission. S. Urban noted that TIA-538 (T.6) is upfor renewal. TIA-466-A (US standard equivalent to T.30 as of 1993 with some additions) was ready to be published.TIA-465-A (US standard equivalent to T.4) has been published.

S. Urban noted that some concerns had been raised with the ITU test charts because they are slightly wider than 8.5inches to present the maximum scan line width. He asked if others have had difficulties with the wider dimension.

M. Moldovan (Genoa), Fax Testing Editor, has a draft of PN-3194, the TSB on conformity fax testing, atftp.gentech.com directory pub 3194.doc.

H. Silbiger (AT&T) presented TR-29/95-10-49©, Draft Recommendation T.svf, Application Profiles forSimultaneous Voice and Facsimile Terminals (based on V.61), for information. For existing machines that havevoice I/O (games machines and standalone fax), no additional standards for the digital interface would be needed.

K. Krechmer (ACTION Consulting) resigned as Secretary of TR-29; J. Rafferty (Human Communications) agreed totake over as secretary.

LIAISONS

V. Cancio (Xerox), the new chair of TR-29.2, reported on the TR-29.2 meeting (see full report below).

With respect to the MFPI (MultiFunction Peripheral Interface) project, R. Lutz (Cognisys) will review the additionof MLC (Multiple Logical Channel) into IS-650 (MFPI, PN-1906). He will ask Hewlett Packard to submit theMLP (Multi-Layer Protocol) to the next TR-29.2 meeting to determine the status of the IPR (Intellectual PropertyRights) issues. Also, additional physical layer interfaces were supported (e.g., USB, serial ports).

The issue of Class 3 and the use of job submission was discussed. There was discussion about removing the Class3 references from T.31 (Class 1) and T.32 (Class 2). This will effectively occur when the US accepts the use ofT.31 and T.32 in place of Class 1 and Class 2.

K. Krechmer (ACTION Consulting) presented draft T.610, TR-29.2/95-10-52 (R. Goldstein, Q1/8 Rapporteur),which is an overview of T.611. K. Krechmer noted the direction of the T.610 work to include voice and related nearreal time operation. He indicated the desire to see the work in T.611 included in future job submission efforts.

S. Urban (Delta Information Systems) noted that work is progressing in ISO/IEC JTC1 WG1 SC29 on near losslessJBIG (Joint Binary Image Group) and JPEG (Joint Photographics Expert Group) compression. These algorithms canbe tuned to select a compression ratio relative to the coding loss. Also, a new algorithm, pattern matching, (PA-37[H.R. Silbiger, TR-29] from September 1995 Q5/8 and Q19/8 Rapporteurs meeting) from AT&T offers slightlylossy bi-level compression when used for character oriented documents.

J. Rafferty reported on the post dialing delay work at the September 1995 Q5/8 meeting. He noted that there wasinterest developing in a Tx timer focused on network delay timing, separate from the T1 timer.

S. Urban (Delta Information Systems) reported that work on Quality of Service (QoS) in SG 2 and SG 15 iscontinuing. He has seen outlines of work (2 pages) on network fax performance issues. J. Rafferty (HumanCommunications) noted that ECM (Error Correction Mode) use with 64 octet frame size could eliminate some of theQoS issues raised. In Annex C of T.30, 64 octet frame size is to be supported via DIS/DTC bit 7. The US versionof T.30 uses bit 28. TR-29 supported S. Urban drafting a white contribution supporting the use of bit 7 for all.

ITU ORGANIZATION

S. Perschau (NCS) introduced TR-29/95-10-48 . It includes seven documents from the Technical StandardsAdvisory Group (TSAG) meeting (September 19-22 in Geneva) relating to the proposed future operation of the ITU.TR-29/95-10-48 part 1 proposes changes to Study Group working methods:• More rapid action on amendments to Recommendations• Deleting a question that does not receive any contributions for two successive meetings (previously Questions

were only deleted at the end of a study period).Any comments should be addressed to the TSAG by October 1996.



TR-29/95-10-48 part 4 describes the possible organization of a Audiovisual/Multimedia Services Study Groupmade up of parts of existing SG 8, SG 14, and SG 15, as well as SG 1 and SG 9. Such a reorganization couldcommence with the WTSC (World Telecommunication Standardization Conference) October 1996 meeting.

TR-29/95-10-48 part 6 describes possible new directions for the ITU-T using post 1996 Task Forces (TFs). Theidea put forth is to support TFs to focus on specific applications areas and generate as output either Requests forComments or Task Force Reports as opposed to Recommendations. Recommendations would continue to beproduced by the Study Groups.

TR-29/95-10-48 part 3 (Canada) discusses the future role of Joint Coordination Groups (JCGs) noting that thefive JCGs in operation have not minimized overlapping work in Study Groups but contributed to it. TR-29/95-10-48 part 7, a report on the future disposition of JCGs by the subworking group of the TSAG, suggests reducingthe future activities of any JCG (Joint Coordination Group) to coordination.

TR-29.2 PROPOSED CONTRIBUTIONS TO SG 8

TR-29.2/95-10-55 (Microsoft) was presented by V. Cancio (Xerox) as a proposed White Contribution. Itproposes that the US support draft Annex A/V.25ter and not continue with the parallel work in draft Annex C/T.31.This was supported.

TR-29/95-10-47 (J. Rafferty, Human Communications) proposes changing the FCLASS indicator inamendments to T.32 (planned for February 1996) to a value of 2.1. This leaves 2.0 for use by the existing versionof TIA-592 (assuming no versions of T.32 emerge before February 1996). J. Rafferty proposed bringing thisforward a White Contribution and then bringing, as a default document, the change pages of T.32.

S. Urban (Delta Information Systems) will also bring to US ITU Study Group D the previously approved paper onBFT (Binary File Transfer), supporting a modification to the Application Reference to allow Object ID as well as agraphic string (see CSR-T Vol. 6.6 page 35 BFT).

Ken Krechmer, Communications Standards Review

TR-29.1 FACSIMILE AND FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOLS

TR-29.1 focused on modifications to T.4 and T.30, including modifications for support of V.34. The other majorarea of work was on enhanced negotiations. Applications of enhanced negotiations included enhanced BFT.

J. Rafferty (Human Communications) was supported unanimously as Vice Chair of TR-29.1.

Liaison with the Salutation Consortium has been started. This group has a limited interest in fax. The work isbeing driven from Japan. They want a return receipt facility and generally want to use a simplified facsimile en-hancement approach as outlined in R. Lutz’s paper on negotiations for the job submission application. They mayalso use NSF (Non Standard Facilities) frames or Binary File Transfer. J. Rafferty noted that he had sent an informalmessage to Mr. Satoh (on the technical committee for this group). TR-29.1 agreed to send them a message invitingthem to work cooperatively with TR-29.1.

LIAISON REPORTS

G. Griffith (Rockwell) reported the results related to V.34 fax at the September Q19/8 Rapporteurs meeting in PaloAlto, CA. A. Pugh (MGUK Ltd.), T.30 Editor, submitted two white contributions at the meeting which summarizeamendments to T.4 and T.30. T.4 and T.30 are up for approval in February. Various modifications were agreed toand will be submitted by A. Pugh as white papers.

J. Rafferty reported on portions of the Q5/8 Rapporteurs meeting. Q5/8 has now agreed that the New FaxNegotiations Method will go forward and that a consolidated permanent document needs to be developed in the formof draft amendments. A migration path has been agreed to, such that new services shall be evaluated to see if theywill be added to the current method as well as to the new method.

H. Silbiger (AT&T) reported on the submission of a Simultaneous Voice and Fax paper from AT&T which wasaccepted as the basis for future work. This submission was also reviewed by the Q1/14 meeting, which agreed tocontinue liaison with SG 8 on this issue. A contribution was requested by Q5/8 on the use of a 64 octet ECM(Error Correction Mode) frame for T.30. The capability to request use of a 64 octet frame for Group 3 Annex Coperations is included in the current white papers from A. Pugh, T.30 Editor.



H. Silbiger also reported that a joint meeting of Questions 8 and 15 was ongoing during the same week inBarcelona. The BFT proposal from the US on incorporation of Object IDs in the application reference field of T.434was scheduled to be discussed at that meeting.

G. Griffith (Rockwell) reported that the Q1/14 Working Party meeting held in Munich during the prior week had“determined” the latest changes to V.34 and V.8 that were requested by Q19/8. British Telecom proposed that V.8 bemodified to support V.8bis functionality. However, an ad hoc meeting at Q1/14 agreed to add the V.8 functionalityto V.8bis. Several recommendations related to simultaneous voice/data have been determined. SG 15 is studyingthe voice coders to be used for DSVD (Digital Simultaneous Voice Data). The two methods still under considerationare from the DSP Group (TrueSpeech) and University of Sherbrooke. Technical Editor’s Note: SG 15, at theNovember meeting, selected the University of Sherbrooke coder. See the report of that meeting in this issue ofCSR-T.

EXTENDED NEGOTIATIONS

TR-29.1/95-10-48© (R. Lutz, MFP Association) is a technical contribution regarding job submission andTransportable Document Format (TDF). It outlines a methodology for handling job submission including a TDFthat is suitable for use in the process of negotiating with the service of interest (whether that service is DirectConnect, Local Area, or Dial-Up) and passing arbitrary file information. Figure 1 of the document provides a modelfor General Device Abstraction. Section 4.5 reviews the key issue of Configuration. Many definitions are providedto address various different methodologies such as MIBs (Management Information Bases), MIFs (ManagementInformation Files) and various forms of Configuration Management. R Lutz also referenced TR-29.1/95-10-50(R. Lutz, MFP Association) which contains RFC-1759, the Printer MIB (Management Information Base). Section4.9.1 of TR-29.1/95-10-48© defines a Job, which is a logical grouping of tasks scheduled at the same approximatetime. Section 7.1 defines a “Transportable Document Format” composed of elements which include a job ticket,specification, content descriptor, and content. R. Lutz proposed that the content descriptor be T.434 compatible. Aseries of steps were reviewed that make up the Job Management process. This process basically involvesestablishing connections between service providers, exchanging capabilities, and then transferring data content.Provisions were also made to provide reports on events and status.

TR-29.1/95-10-49 (R. Lutz, MFP Association) contains version 2 of advanced facsimile negotiationrequirements for MFPs (MultiFunction Peripherals) and dial-up job submissions. It provides a list of applicationsneeds and a proposal for an alternative form of advanced negotiations that differs slightly from the goals of thecurrent proposal. It also provides a list of goals that the new negotiations method should address. It lays outdifferent ways to do the Job Submission approach using conventional T.30 and also using Annex C (duplex). Thebasic concept is that all of the large amounts of data involved would be transmitted using a fax ECM mode. It wasnoted during discussion that Binary File Transfer or Basic File Transfer could be used to do this. Some technicalquestions were raised on the approach for doing job submission on “legacy” fax devices. For example, many currentfax machines will only permit one turnaround in a fax session; the paper suggests that several turnarounds beinitiated using the EOM (End of Message) signal in order to transfer job submission data in alternate directionsduring the same session. R. Lutz noted that several Japanese vendors in the Salutation Consortium requested thatthere be a way to do job submission which would only require a firmware upgrade for fax devices in a current style.There was some agreement that establishing a backward compatibility mode for compatibility with the current styleof T.30 terminals has merit. However, there was concern about suggestions to restrict the addition of newcapabilities to the protocol based on what existing “gateways” or DCME/PCME (Digital Circuit MultiplicationEquipment/ Packet Circuit Multiplication Equipment) can handle, particularly concerning the suggestion that no newfax signals be permitted for use in the backward compatibility. It was noted that previously standardized T.30signals (e.g., for ECM or BFT) are just now showing up in the marketplace. R. Lutz also proposed principles forjob submission using an advanced method that can take advantage of next generation duplex fax features. Thisproposal included the following key points: (1) Use multiple pass negotiations, and (2) maintain a layer separationbetween the negotiation protocol and the parameters to be negotiated.

D. Duehren (Brooktrout Technology, TR-29.1 chair) asked J. Rafferty to summarized the action items that heenvisioned were needed to move the new negotiations work forward in the ITU. J. Rafferty outlined the followingsteps:• Prepare a “permanent document” for the January TR-29.1 meeting for review and submission to SG 8. It will

include draft text for amendments to T.30 based upon previous contributions and also include background materialand examples.

• Prepare amendments as needed to enhance the permanent document.• Explore new applications and how they may fit in with the new negotiations method.



D. Duehren felt that the preparation of the “permanent document” was important, since this had been requested byQ5/8. He also proposed that several applications of extended fax negotiations can be explored: (1) Job Submission,(2) Security, (3) Selective Polling and Database Retrieval, and (4) Routing. Additional contributions were invited inall of these areas.

J. Rafferty prepared a project statement for an Extended Group 3 Facsimile Negotiations project (TR-29.1/95-10-56 ). The project will focus on the preparation of contributions to the ITU on extensions to the Group 3 facsimileprotocol. The proposed scope was accepted, and the project will be submitted to TIA for a project number. J.Rafferty has agreed to be the editor for the project.

PN-3599 FAX ROUTING

The PN-3599 Editor, J. Rafferty, proposed that the IS-141 (Routing of Group 3 Facsimile Messages Utilizing theSubaddress) interim standard for facsimile routing be re-affirmed while awaiting the approval of T.routing in StudyGroup 8. The members voted to re-affirm it. He also reviewed the results of a TR-29 contribution on a variablelength SUB (Subaddress) at the interim meeting of Question 5 of SG 8. There was interest in this approach, but itwas suggested that a more complete solution be developed, which may include a length indicator, the application ofvariable length FIFs (File Interchange Format) to the SUB, SEP (Selective Polling), and FIF frames, and support foralphanumeric data. Further contributions are invited. J. Rafferty also reported on a TR-29 contribution in which thesubaddress was proposed for use in polling. This was also well received, but further contributions are needed.

V.34 FAX

G. Griffith (Rockwell) presented four papers for information. TR-29.1/95-10-52 (A. Pugh, Editor, UK) is DraftAmendment 3 to Recommendation T.4. It was submitted as an ITU-T white contribution by the T.4/T.30 Editor,A. Pugh. It is a very short paper that modifies T.4 to add V.34 modulation and delete the V.33 method. TR-29.1/95-10-53 (A. Pugh, Editor, UK) is Draft Amendment 3 to Recommendation T.30. It contains changes that1) incorporate the use of the modulation system defined in Recommendation V.34, 2) indicate the phasing out of themodulation system defined in Recommendation V.33, and 3) cover the use of network-oriented codes to be specifiedin revised Recommendation T.35. Both of the papers are based upon decisions that were made at the March 1995 SG8 meeting. The amendments were “determined” at that time. TR-29.1/95-10-54 (A. Pugh, Rec. T.30 Editor)contains proposed amendments to Recommendation T.30 to incorporate the deletion of references to Groups 1 and 2and the inclusion of the V.34 modulation system. It is based upon decisions that were made at the September Q5/8and Q19/8 Rapporteurs meeting in Palo Alto. The paper includes text and charts which revise and supplement TR-29.1/95-10-53 , and it includes edits to a revised annex F.4 which itemizes changes needed within the V.34 andV.8 recommendations to support Group 3 fax. TR-29.1/95-10-55 is a collection of e-mail conducted between A.Pugh and T. Mori (Japan) that contains suggested clarifications to the material in the working draft. It is expectedthat A. Pugh will incorporate clarifications from TR-29.1/95-10-55 into TR-29.1/95-10-54 and then submitthe material as a white contribution. Collectively, the three white contributions will contain the amendments to T.4and T.30 that are proposed for approval at the February 1996 meeting of Study Group 8. Members were encouragedto review the papers and note any editorial changes that may need to be addressed.

PN-3364 ENHANCED BINARY FILE TRANSFER

TR-29.1/95-10-44 (J. Rafferty, Human Communications) contains excerpts from T.127, Multi-Point BinaryFile Transfer, which addresses the approach taken in requesting Binary File Transfers by TR-29.3 (audiographicsconferencing). T.127 is an approved ITU-T recommendation for transferring data in a multi-point conferencingenvironment. Like Group 3 fax, T.127 uses the BFT format which has been standardized as ITU-T T.434. J. Raf-ferty felt that the paper had some useful ideas on BFT negotiations that could possibly be adopted for use withenhanced BFT negotiations in Group 3 fax. In particular, he drew attention to: (1) the exchange of a subset of BFTtags prior to the file transfer, and (2) the ability to negotiate a compression method in advance of the transfer whichcould be applied to the entire data stream, including BFT header fields. No action was taken, but TR-29.1 hasinterest in developing an enhanced BFT negotiations method for use in Group 3.

TR-29.1/95-10-45 (J. Rafferty, Human Communications) contains the most current list of Object IDs that havebeen registered by the Electronic Messaging Association (EMA) and various software companies for use with theApplication Reference tag for X.400 File Transfer Body Part (FTBP) use. The list was provided for information inassociation with the work to extend T.434 BFT and related protocol negotiations. J. Rafferty noted that some of theIDs were being revised and that other additional IDs were under consideration. These OIDs (Object IDentifiers) tie



into TR-29.1/95-08-31 (J. Rafferty and H. Silbiger) and was approved by TR-29.1 at the last meeting. TR-29.1/95-08-31 proposed adding the OID to the syntax of the T.434 Application Reference field.

TR-29.1/95-10-58 (D. Duehren, Brooktrout) is the current list of BFT Diagnostic Messages as approved by theITU-T for T.434 in March. TR-29.1 agreed to support sending TIA-614, BFT Format for Group 3 Facsimile (SP-2225), with editorial changes to include the diagnostic messages, to the TIA TSSC (Technical StandardsSubcommittee) for publication.

H. Silbiger noted that there had been an inquiry from T. Mori (Ricoh, Japan) about the formatting of the FDM(Frequency Division Multiplexing) frame in T.30. There was a limited description of FDM in T.30. Contributionswere invited.

R. Lutz volunteered to be editor for the enhanced BFT project, PN-3364. The project will deal with enhancements toBFT including negotiations.

FAX SECURITY

S. Urban (Delta Information Systems, TR-29 Chair) presented TR-29.1/95-10-51 (Ad Hoc Group on Security)which contains implementation considerations for secure facsimile within G3 and G4. The Ad Hoc Group concludedthe following:• Both RSA (Public Key Cryptosystem invented by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman) and HKM (Hawthorne Key

Management) could meet the necessary service requirements.• HFX (Hawthorne Facsimile Cipher), FEAL32 (Fast Encryption ALgorithm 32), and SAFER (Secure and Fast

Encryption Routine) cipher are acceptable.• A minimum possible number of alternative key management, cipher, and hashing systems should be

recommended by SG 8.• SG 8 should recommend a default system for each of key management, ciphers, and hashing; all systems

supporting ITU fax security should implement these defaults.• Manufacturers should be free to implement any additional systems recommended by the ITU for fax security.• Further work should be done on HKM/HFX and RSA proposals so that a final decision on the default systems

can be made in February 1996.S. Urban noted that the issue of registration authorities was still not really resolved. Another issue is how keys willbe exchanged to begin the security process. There are two ad hoc groups in Q5/8 that will be preparing proposals fora security framework within Group 3 for review in February. The groups include advocates for the RSA and HKMmethods of encryption. S. Urban volunteered to be editor for a new TR-29.1 project on security; he will prepare aproject statement.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

TR-29.1/95-10-46 (UK, same as PA-43 presented at the Palo Alto Rapporteurs meeting) proposes the additionof some new signals to Recommendation T.30 to enable several documents to be retrieved with the same call usingthe Selective Polling Frame (SEP).

TR-29.1/95-10-47 (UK, same as PA-44), presented at the Palo Alto Rapporteurs meeting, proposes thedefinition of new responses in Recommendation T.30 to invalid or corrupted reception of frames for Password(PWD), SEP, and Subaddressing (SUB) in order to provide more efficient handling of these events.

James Rafferty, Human Communications

TR-29.2 FACSIMILE DIGITAL INTERFACES

V. Cancio (Xerox) was nominated and unanimously approved as the new TR-29.2 Chair. A volunteer to serve asVice Chair was requested. R. Lutz (Cognisys and MFPA) offered to serve and was unanimously accepted.

J. Decuir (Microsoft, outgoing TR-29.2 Chair) distributed TR-29.2/95-10-42 , the status of committee business.The results of discussion are reported in the applicable sections below.

It was agreed to have Class 4 updated (editor: L. Staples, Data Race) and consider how to make Class 4 an optionalcapability under Class 1 (using Class 1 commands and responses with Class 4 for transparency).



LIAISON REPORTS

TR-30.4 DTE-DCE Protocols

J. Decuir reported on the September TR-30-4 meeting. TR-30.4 generated US contributions to ITU Q7/14,including draft Annexes for V.25ter that overlap the draft Annexes for T.31, as described in TR-29.2/95-10-46 (J.Decuir, Microsoft).

ITU Q5/8, Group 3 Equipment

J. Decuir presented TR-29.2/95-10-43 , reporting on the parts of the September Q5/8 Rapporteur’s meetingconcerning T.31 and T.32. Agreements were reached for Resolution 1 decision at the February SG 8 meeting on thetexts for:• TR-29.2/95-10-44 (J. Decuir, Rec. T.31 Editor), Amendment 1 to T.31 (same as PA-76)• TR-29.2/95-10-45 (J. Decuir, Rec. T.32 Editor), Amendment 1 to T.32 (same as PA-77)A liaison was sent to the SG 14 WP1 meeting containing T.31 Amendment 1.

ITU Q7/14 DTE-DCE CONTROL

TR-29.2/95-10-46 (J. Decuir, Microsoft) reports on the parts of the October Q7/14 Rapporteur’s meetingconcerning V.25ter amendments. Agreements were reached for Resolution 1 decision at the March SG 14 meetingon the texts for:• Amendment 1 to V.25ter, Annex A (see TR-29.2/95-10-47), including extensions for V.8bis• V.ib, In-Band DCE control, an extension of TIA-617 to support 8-bit in-band codes• Synchronous Data Modes, previously draft Annex B/V.25ter, as Annex A/V.ib, TR-29.2/95-10-50 (J. Decuir,

V.25ter Editor)TR-29.2/95-10-47 (Q7/14) is a liaison that was sent back to the SG 8 meeting containing V.25ter Amendment1.

AMENDMENTS TO ITU T.31 FOR V.34

As noted above, the changes from the March version of T.31 are contained in TR-29.2/95-10-44 (J. Decuir, Rec.T.31 Editor). It was agreed for Resolution 1 decision for the February 1996 SG 8 meeting.

TR-29.2/95-10-55 , (J. Decuir, Microsoft) proposes that the US support dropping Annex C/T.31 in favor ofAnnex A/V.25ter. The basis is that SG 14 was requested to take over the work of Annex A/V.25ter, it was done,and it is an improvement over the original SG 8 work. The contribution was approved for forwarding through TR-29 and US Study Group D as a US position to SG 8.

J. Decuir noted that it would be appropriate for TR-29.2 to study TR-29.2/95-10-50 , Revised Annex B/V.25ter(J. Decuir, V.25ter Editor), and consider drafting a simplified Annex B/T.31 to reference it. However, there was in-sufficient time at the meeting to do so. Contributions were invited.

AMENDMENTS TO ITU T.32 FOR V.34

As noted above, the changes from the March version of T.32 are contained in TR-29.2/95-10-45 (J. Decuir, Rec.T.32 Editor). It was agreed for Resolution 1 decision for the February 1996 SG 8 meeting. No changes wereconsidered necessary. No action was taken.

PN-3130 SERVICE CLASS 4

The new editor, L. Staples (Data Race), asked for help recovering a usable machine-readable version of the last draftof PN-3130. J. Decuir provided one based upon an RTF file provided by the previous editor.

The Editor asked what problem PN-3130 was needed to solve. Members recapitulated previous discussions and notedthat Facsimile DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) software manufacturers had asked for it.

In discussion, it was proposed that PN-3130 might be simplified by defining some switch (e.g., +FCLASS=4) thatwould cause the DCE (Data Circuit Terminating Equipment) to use Class 4 operating procedures (queuing of com-mands and responses) but also using TIA-578/T.31 commands and responses rather than new ones. There wassupport for this idea, and contributions were invited.



PN-3294 FACSIMILE DCE APPLICATIONS NOTES

There were no new contributions. It was suggested and agreed that PN-3294 should include a section explaining therelationships amongst the various versions of Class 1 and Class 2.

PN-3626 REVISION OF TIA-578-A (C LASS 1)

J. Decuir, Editor of TIA-578-A and T.31, presented the following two contributions. TR-29.2/95-10-54 is theANSI project initiation request, using text agreed upon at the previous meeting. TR-29.2/95-10-48 (J. Decuir,Rec. T.31 Editor) is a first draft of PN-3626 containing new material spliced in from T.31 and T.31 Annex B. Thecover page listing the changes was discussed in detail.

During discussion, several options for progressing PN-3626 were proposed:• Stitch revisions from T.31 into TIA-578-A to make TIA-578-B, as shown in TR-29.2/95-10-48• Adopt T.31 as the new basis, and then add an informative Annex which describes the differences from TIA-578-A• Do nothing

TR-29.2 agreed to the second option above and decided that this would be within the scope of the agreed-upon projectstatement in TR-29.2/95-10-54 . J. Decuir agreed to collaborate with the new editor, V. Cancio (Xerox), togenerate a contribution on the differences, beyond that provided in TR-29.2/95-10-48 .

PN-3625 REVISION OF TIA-592

J. Decuir, Editor of TIA-592 and T.32, presented the following two contributions. TR-29.2/95-10-53 is theANSI project initiation request, using text agreed upon at the previous meeting. TR-29.2/95-10-49 is a firstdraft of PN-3625, containing new material spliced in from IS-134 (Revision to TIA/EIA-592, AsynchronousFacsimile DCE Control Standard Service Class 2-A), T.32, and T.32 Annex C. The cover page listing the changeswas discussed in detail.

TR-29.2 agreed to the same approach as decided above: that TIA would adopt amended T.32 and then describe thedifferences from TIA-592. J. Decuir again offered to collaborate with V. Cancio to generate a contribution on thosedifferences.

PN-3625 will result in the replacement of IS-134. However, since it expires shortly, TR-29.2 agreed to ask TIA torenew it for a year.

It was also noted that this approach of basing TIA-592-A directly on T.32 will also retire TIA-605 (DCE to localDTE Packet Protocol), since it is included in T.32 section 9.

MFP

R. Lutz (Cognisys, representing MFP Association) presented TR-29.2/95-10-51 , a report on the status of MFPIwork. It provides the status of IS-650 (MFPI), addresses cooperation with IEEE-1284.3, and discusses the future ofother layers, including PN-2725 Class 3.

IS-650 COMPLETION

The log jam over intellectual property disclosures was broken at TIA. With some editorial changes (previouslyagreed), IS-650 has been released for publication.

FUTURE MFPI

Since MFPI work has been completed, the IEEE 1284.3 committee is progressing work on interfaces over commonparallel ports. Hewlett Packard contributed their MLC specification, embedded in many shipping products, for con-sideration by IEEE 1284.3. MLC has been endorsed by the MFPA (MFP Association).

Based on these facts, R. Lutz proposed that future MFPI be revised to use MLC with 1284.3 devices. His proposedplan, from TR-29.2/95-10-51 , is as follows:• List requirements for MFP that are not already included in MLC and the work of IEEE 1284.3• Provide this list of requirements to IEEE 1284.3 to determine which items from the list could/should be accepted

for inclusion in the IEEE 1284.3 standard• Include any remaining items in TIA-650 (IS-650 rev 2)• TIA-650 could also include specifications on how to use other interfaces (e.g., serial, Universal Serial Bus, etc.)



Some support was expressed for this plan, but no decisions were made. R. Lutz indicated that at the MFPA meetinglater this week, work would continue on listing requirements. The result may be taken to the IEEE 1284.3 meetingthe following week, and answers may be obtained for which items could/should be accepted for the IEEE 1284.3standard.

The Chair, V. Cancio, asked about the intellectual property status of MLC. It was noted that IEEE and ANSI havesimilar IP policies, and there is presumption that Hewlett Packard’s quoted willingness to provide free licenses toMLC for use with IEEE 1284.3 would also apply to their use with MFPI. She requested a written statement on theintellectual property status of MLC with regard to IS-650.

PN-2725 SERVICE CLASS 3

R. Lutz, Editor, proposed that the Job Submission standard, the recently agreed basis of PN-2725, should supportinterworking with remote MFP terminals or local devices. He proposed that the method determined for workingwith remote devices be based on T.434. This approach is described in TR-29.1/95-10-48© (R. Lutz, MFPAssociation). On request, this contribution was renumbered TR-29.2/95-10-56© and distributed in TR-29.2 also.

The Editor proposed that job submission be done in steps:• Determine how to do job submission to a far end terminal (e.g., “DUD”)• Determine how to migrate that protocol to a local device• The result would be PN-2725

There was considerable discussion, particularly on the API (Application Programming Interface) aspects of thiswork. There was some support for the approach, but no conclusion. The Chair noted the need to consider theComputer Fax Protocol. It was noted that job submission API is addressed by T.611.

TR-29.2 confirmed its previous consensus that the job submission work is within the scope of PN-2725. However,they agreed to remove references to it in TIA-578-B and TIA-592-A, but this will happen as a side effect of adoptingT.31 and T.32 verbatim.

CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT FOR FACSIMILE DEVICES

There were no contributions, nor was there a volunteer to serve as editor. Therefore, the previously agreed projectstatement (TR-29.2/95-08-33) will not be forwarded to TIA yet. It was noted that T.611 also addresses facsimileconfiguration.

FAX APIS

K. Krechmer, ACTION Consulting, presented TR-29.2/95-10-52 (R. Goldstein, Q1/8 Rapporteur), an overviewof T.611. Discussion noted that T.611 includes job submission and configuration management. It also has scopebeyond those items.

R. Lutz proposed that TR-29.2 continue to work in MFPA on job submission (PN-2725) and the future of MFPI,including scope for fax, printing, and scanning. Results will come back to TIA, where work on fax is done. Thisoffer of work from MFPA was welcomed by the committee.

Joe Decuir, Microsoft Corporation

TR-29.3 AUDIOGRAPHIC CONFERENCING

TR-29.3 met in conjunction with the Q10/8 meeting in Paris, October 2-6, 1995. Please see the Q10/8 report inCSR-T 6.7, October-November, 1995.

TR-29.4 SECURE FACSIMILE

64 KBIT/S STRATEGIC SECURE FACSIMILE

Group 3/64 Option

There is Government interest with the objective of using commercial standards wherever possible, as well as NATOinterest, in using the new Group 3/64 or G3C standard described in Annex C of T.30. TR-29.4 is not aware of anyvendors who have implemented G3C and the Japanese manufacturers are still pushing the Group 4 standard. DoD



does not have any money to put out a tender for a quantity of G3C compatible units to encourage vendors to im-plement the protocol. No further action will be taken by TR-29.4 until G3C is available from one or more of thefacsimile manufacturers.

MIL-STD-188-161D Option

One approach is to speed up the MIL-STD-188-161D protocol to operate at 64 kbit/s which may be useful fortactical applications and some strategic applications. Depending on the application, FEC may only be needed up to16 kbit/s and higher resolutions may be desirable. JITC has already done testing on one vendor’s equipment whichwas able to operate using the MIL-STD at a rate slightly above 40 kbit/s. A speeded up 161D protocol has theadvantage of maintaining only one protocol and the definition and testing required can be done relatively easily. G.Constantinou (DoD) agreed that TR-29.4 should concentrate on this option so that at least an interim solution canbe formulated.

SECFAX 95-10-15 (J. Hamadani, Ricoh) and SECFAX 95-10-16 (N. Wiseman, GTE Government Systems)indicate that there is nothing in the protocol to prevent operation at 64 kbit/s; however, without changes, no perfor-mance improvement such as faster throughput will be achieved. With the flexibility built into 161D, timingparameters can be changed and compression added in order to reduce document transmission times assuming memory-to-memory operation. In SECFAX 95-10-15 three options are presented to support 64kbit/s operation.Although Alternative #2, change one timing for 64kbit/s operation, in the contribution was initially favored, afterfurther discussions it was decided to pursue Alternative #3, change all timings. The timings in all levels of theprotocol will be revised, although the core of the protocol is not changed.

It was noted that the timing changes proposed in Alternative #3 can be made and initially tested at 16 kbit/s.Changes to the handshake and protocol, plus alternative error schemes, could also be investigated, but it was agreedthat these areas add complexity and will be considered in a later phase of the project. B. Bradley (GKI) agreed withinthe next few weeks to supply comments on the approach based on his company’s experience in operating at bit ratesabove 16 kbit/s.

J. Hamadani will do further study on Alternative #3 and then will prepare a document to include adding a bit in 161Dfor adding faster response times. The initial assumptions are: memory-to-memory operation; error free transmissionlines (It is assumed that 161D’s FEC scheme will not be appropriate to handle errors at 64 kbit/s.); and zero fill bits.Initial testing will be done at 16 kbit/s. J. Tomko (JITC) indicated that JITC could do the testing at a cost whichwould probably not exceed $10K. G. Constantinou will interface with the government working group and NATO,and also will see if the government might have any money to cover the testing costs.

G. Constantinou did not have any other secure fax capabilities that had been presented to him from the workinggroup as a result of the seminar held in June.

STU-STE PROGRAM UPDATE

Several questions were raised during the last TR-29.4 meeting and this one regarding the STE (Secure TerminalEquipment) program:

1. What is the specification for the data port interface?2. Can the STE operate in clear data mode at 64 kbit/s?3. How is the ISDN interface implemented? With a PCMCIA card?4. Does the STE program group want secure fax units with PCMCIA card slots which can accept an NSA card for

transmission of classified documents?

G. Constantinou indicated that GTE is chairing the interoperability working group for the STE and that the data porthasn’t been defined yet. J. Tomko said he would collect all the current information from Motorola on the STEprogram and circulate it to TR-29.4. A STE working group meeting is being held in the Washington D.C. area inDecember and TR-29.4 committee members are invited to attend. G. Constantinou will provide the dates. If useful,TR-29.4 could prepare a list of questions with interface parameters that need to be identified.

JITC TESTING

The Ricoh Secure Fax Adapter and GKI Rugged facsimile are being tested. The Zenith/Inteq controller which hasbeen tested is being submitted to NATO to obtain a certification letter for STANAG 5000 (reference: SECFAX95-09-13 from J. Tomko). Once this is accomplished, J. Tomko will submit the other 161-certified equipment toNATO for STANAG 5000 certification. From now on, JITC programs must be fully self-sustaining. The impactof this statement is uncertain, but it may have an effect on pricing for future testing.



LOSS OF SYNC SIGNAL

G. Constantinou is preparing to submit an Information Paper which recommends that the technical requirement for aloss of sync signal and circuit be investigated, and that if no justification is found, both will be deleted from MIL-STD-188-161 and STANAG 5000. If Paragraph 5.2.4 of the MIL-STD must remain in force, J. Tomko willrecommend a minimum time for reply to substitute for the current text which specifies “sufficiently long.”

STANAG 5000 LIAISON UPDATE

The STANAG 5000 working group will make multi-page mandatory. The final draft STANAG 5000 (Revision 3)should be balloted by NATO countries starting sometime in February 1996. The requirement for a one meterdocument capability will be an option. G. Constantinou is preparing a new draft and will resubmit it to the workinggroup.

FACSIMILE PRIVACY AND TR-29.1 L IAISON

It was decided that TR-29.1 would take over responsibility for the commercial uses of fax security. TR-29.4 willcontinue to monitor events in the commercial security area and establish a liaison with TR-29.1. A paper wasdistributed in the TR-29 meeting indicating that ITU Study Group 8 has an Ad Hoc group to investigate proposalsfor secure fax for G3 and G4 using the RSA and/or HKM/HFX (U.K.) systems. The necessary service requirementsare:• Mutual authentication• Secure exchange of keys/secret session key establishment• Message confidentiality (encryption)• Message integrity• Confirmation of message receiptIt was agreed that SG 8 should recommend a default system for each capability required: key management, ciphersand hashing, and that all systems supporting ITU fax security should implement these defaults. The objective is tomake a final decision on the default systems in February 1996. Non-repudiation was not required thoughconfirmation of receipt was very desirable. RSA indicated to the Ad Hoc group that it was offering a new ciphersystem, RC5, that was acceptable under US export requirements. RSA also felt that NSA might be ready to relaxits attitude on the length of encryption ciphers with 44 bits becoming acceptable soon and 48 bits possible in thenear future. There was also the possibility that NSA would not object to systems where the number of bits in-creased by approximately two per year from then onwards.

Bob Robinson, Ilex Systems

TR-29 PARTIAL MEETING ROSTER, OCTOBER 16 – 18, 1995, SAN DIEGO, CA

Stephen Urban, Delta Information Systems Chair TR-29David Duehren, Brooktrout Technology Chair TR-29.1Vivian Cancio, Xerox Chair TR-29.2Bruce DeGrasse, BJ Communications Chair TR-29.3Bob Robinson, Ilex Systems Chair TR-29.4

ACTION Consulting Ken KrechmerAT&T Herman SilbigerAT&T Paradyne Robert LastingerCognisys Raymond LutzComm. Stds Review Elaine BaskinDoD/DISA-JIEO George ConstantinouDatarace Les StaplesGammalink Michael SpannGKI Brad Bradley (via phone)GTE Gov’t. Systems Neil Wiseman

Hewlett Packard Salvador PlasenciaHuman Comm. James RaffertyJITC Jim TomkoLanier Worldwide Jim DahmenMicrosoft Joe DecuirNCS Stephen PerschauRicoh Corporation James HamadaniRockwell Int’l Glen GriffithTexas Instruments Henry JacobsXerox Vivian Cancio



REPORT OF THE VERY LOW BITRATE VISUAL TELEPHONYRAPPORTEUR’S MEETING (QUESTION 2/15)

OCTOBER 17 – 20, 1995, DARMSTADT, GERMANYTD-1 is the list of attendees. TD-2 is the list of documents.

The October meeting of the ITU-T Experts Group for Very Low Bit Rate Visual Telephony was organized into thefollowing segments:• Video Coder (H.263)• Speech Coder (G.723)• Multiplex (H.223)• Communication Control (H.245)• System (H.324)• Mobile (AV.32M)• H.263L• H.324 Testing• Non-Conversational Services

One major purpose of this meeting was to finalize the edits on the five draft Recommendations (H.324-System,H.263-Video, G.723-Speech, H.245-Control, H.223-Multiplex) that were determined at the February SG 15 meetingand submitted to the ITU as White Documents in July. The resulting changes to these Recommendations areelectronically available at the following FTP site: ftp://ftp.std.com/vendors/ PictureTel/h324. Another majorobjective of this meeting was work toward the development of the AV.324M multimedia terminal.

The Rapporteur, R. Schaphorst (Delta Information Systems), presented document LBC-95-264 regardingIntellectual Property Rights (IPR) for the H.324 Recommendations. FT/CNET/ University of Sherbrooke, DSPGroup/Audio Codes, National Semiconductor, Sharp, Siemens, Telenor and Thomson provided IPR statements.

The attention of the members was also drawn to a request made by the TSB (Telecommunications StandardizationBoard) that “Any ITU member organization aware of a patent held by itself or others which may fully or partly coverelements of the draft Recommendation(s) proposed for approval is requested to disclose such information to the TSB,in no case later than the date scheduled for approval of the Recommendation(s), in accordance with TSB patentpolicy.”

VIDEO CODER (H.263)

The Chair of this work was K. Rijkse (KPN Research).

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION H.263

Draft Recommendation H.263, contained in LBC-95-251 , was reviewed; and the changes that were introducedsince the last meeting were approved. Additional editorial changes were proposed and accepted, and some additionalsentences were added to clarify and improve the consistency of the recommendation. A few changes were expected tobe made after the meeting.

A small improvement of the overlapped motion compensation technique will be made in section F.3. If one of thesurrounding blocks is coded in INTRA mode, the corresponding remote motion vector is not set to zero, but replacedby the current motion vector.

In annex C, it will be added that only QCIF (Quarter Common Intermediate Format ) bitstreams will be used inContinuous Presence Multipoint mode.

LBC-95-271 (B. Haskell, AT&T) contains proposals on H.263 bitstream and MPEG1 (Motion Picture ExpertsGroup 1) half-pel interpolation. It concludes that it is not a good idea to change the H.263 bitstream at this latestage and that the white paper change to the H.263 half-pel interpolation should be rescinded and returned to theMPEG1 method.

LBC-95-290 (Y. Machida, Matsushita and Y. Nakaya, Hitachi, Japan) proposes a correction to PTYPE Bit 1 aswell as some editorial changes.



EXTENSION OF MOTION VECTOR RANGE

LBC-95-271 (B. Haskell, AT&T) and LBC-95-278 (Telenor R&D) support the extension of the motion vectorrange from [-16,15.5] to [-31.5,31.5] if no changes are made to the current H.263 bitstream. LBC-95-278proposes to change the definition of the vector differences that are transmitted in such a way that a range of[-16,15.5] can be reached around the predictor instead of around zero. An accompanying tape was provided withsimulation results. The proposal was adopted. The extension of the motion vector range will be included in AnnexD, Unrestricted Motion Vectors. However, the extended motion vector range is not automatically used if theadvanced prediction mode is used. Only the technique in Annex D with motion vectors crossing the picture boundaryis also included in Annex F.

HYPOTHETICAL REFERENCE DECODER

LBC-95-297 (BT) proposes a new hypothetical reference decoder (HRD). It is very similar to the HRD in H.261.The rationale behind it is that the new HRD is more or less proven to work and easier to understand for people whoknow H.261. It was decided to continue with the HRD as it is now in H.263, but based upon the comments inLBC-95-297 , two changes to the HRD were adopted. In the resulting text, only the maximum buffer size of theHRD is specified, which depends on maximum video bitrate and maximum picture resolution for the actualconnection.

H.263 CONFORMANCE TESTING

A short discussion took place on whether to start an activity on H.263 conformance testing. It was felt that thiswould be quite useful, especially the creation of bitstreams that are very demanding for H.263 decoders and also thedevelopment of a program that tests bitstreams produced by H.263 encoders. It was agreed to have an ad hoc groupwork on this activity after the meeting; several companies indicated a willingness to take part in this activity.

COMPARISON BETWEEN H.263 AND H.261

LBC-95-280 (Telenor R&D) describes a comparison between H.263 and H.261. The H.263 coding was performedin the same way as the coding for MPEG4. The H.261 coding was done as close to H.263 as possible. The conclu-sion from LBC-95-280 is that H.263 performs considerably better than H.261 for all tested sequences. Thedifference seems to be larger for QCIF than for CIF. The difference is also very large (almost a factor 3 in bitrate)for sequences with slow regular motion. It was noticed that H.263 also performs very well in the one example withrelatively high bitrate (600 kbit/s). An accompanying tape was provided to subjectively verify the results.

Another tape was shown with a comparison between H.263 and H.261 at 48 and 112 kbit/s. The frame rate was 25frames per second, the picture format was QCIF. The conclusion was that, also at these bitrates, H.263 clearlyoutperforms H.261.

H.263 AS AN OPTION IN H.320

LBC-95-330 (Q3/15 Rapporteur, N. Kenyon, BT Labs) is a copy of a document from the ITU-T Rapporteur forQ3/15, who is responsible for H.320 and related recommendations. This document, which will be a contribution tothe SG 15/1 meeting in November, proposes minor improvements to the H.320 series of Recommendations andincludes a proposal to include H.263 as an option in H.320 and related Recommendations. This may hopefullyspeed up the procedure for approval of the H.263 option in H.320. The document was reviewed and a few changeswere proposed.

In the plenary LBC meeting, there was a complete consensus on the proposal to include H.263 as an option inH.320.

MPEG4 TESTS

LBC-95-279 (Telenor R&D) describes the H.263 simulations submitted as anchors to the MPEG4 tests. Theadaptive scheme used for the decision to use the PB-frames option or not is explained. In addition, the buffer controland the up and down conversion filters are described. An accompanying tape was provided with the coding results.

SPEECH CODER (G.723)

The Chair of this work was R. Cox (AT&T Bell Labs).



EDITING OF DRAFT RECOMMENDATION G.723

LBC-95-253 is the report of the ad hoc LBC speech coding activities June-October 1995. LBC-95-287 is draftRecommendation G.723. The draft submitted to the ITU in July received further minor editorial corrections to bringit into agreement with the bit-exact, fixed-point C source code and to clarify certain ambiguities. Tables 5 and 6containing the bit order for the high rate and low rate speech coders are now based on individual octets, rather than 16bit words. This solves the “byte-order” problem that depended on the byte-order convention of the processor. As apreamble to these tables, section 4 now states explicitly that the octets are to be transmitted in the order listed in thetable and that the bit orders within the table begin with Most Significant Bit (MSB) on the left and ends with LeastSignificant Bit (LSB) on the right. Since these two tables needed to be updated, it was decided to re-order theinformation so that all bits that are common to both the high rate and low rate coder would appear in the same orderin both tables. Furthermore, the bits that are common for comfort noise, for example, generation frames(RATEFLAG, VADFLAG and 24 LPC bits), are listed at the beginning of both tables.

Other than the corrections in section 4, there were only two other very minor corrections. Equation (18) had a minorerror corrected and Table 8 had two minor corrections made to it. This version of the draft Recommendation will besubmitted to the ITU as a delayed contribution for Study Group 15.

NEW VERSION OF THE C CODE

A new version of the C source code will be distributed and will contain the revised ordering of the bitstream. Allbitstream read/write operations will be performed on an octet basis. It will also contain a minor correction that wasdiscovered to be necessary during the preparation of the test vectors. It was decided to eliminate the Bad FrameIndicator words from the bitstream. This will make the bitstream in exact agreement with the draftRecommendation. In order to operate the decoder with simulated frame erasures, a second file, synchronized with thebitstream, will need to be input to the decoder. This was in agreement with the draft Recommendation, section 3.10,where it states that the error concealment “strategy must be triggered by an external indication that the bitstream forthe current frame has been erased.” It was anticipated that this code will be ready for distribution by November 8,1995. Audio Codes agreed to take responsibility for preparing this new version of the source code.

This source code will be distributed as version 4.0 by DSP Group to all organizations who have received theprevious version. Others wishing to receive the code should contact S. Huang of DSP Group. She may be reachedvia e-mail at [email protected]. When G.723 is formally ratified by the ITU-T, this version of the Csource code will be provided to the ITU-T and will then be available to non-members. Purchase of the source codefrom the ITU-T will not provide purchasers with any intellectual property licenses.

TEST VECTORS FOR G.723

LBC-95-324 (D. Massaloux and J-P. Petit, France Telecom/CNET) describes a set of test vectors generated forG.723 and how implementers may use them. They were prepared to distribute them to anyone already having ver-sion 3.0 of the C source code. They found that one small correction to the version 3.0 source code was necessary.In addition, in order to have a comprehensive set of test vectors, it is required that for some of the test vectors, thehighpass filter at the input of the encoder, or the adaptive pot filter at the output of the decoder, must be disabled.The test vectors will be available on the ftp site: ftp.std.com/vendors/PictureTel/h324. As soon as version 4.0 ofthe source code is distributed, France Telecom/CNET will prepare a new version of the test vectors that will be inagreement with version 4.0.

VOICE ACTIVITY DETECTION AND COMFORT NOISE GENERATION

The proponents presented their collaborative effort on a voice activity detector (VAD) and comfort noise generation(CNG) scheme for G.723. LBC-95-329 (D. Massaloux and J-P. Petit, France Telecom/CNET) explains the al-gorithm used for comfort noise generation. France Telecom/CNET also provided a digital audio tape that comparedthe performance of the silence compression scheme with the fixed rate 6.3 kbit/s version of G.723. LBC-95-329will be used as the basis for Draft Annex A/G.723. This annex will also include details on the voice activitydetection algorithm. It was intended to submit LBC-95-329 as a delayed contribution for the November 1995meeting of Study Group 15 and put it forward for determination.

A schedule was outlined for finishing work on this annex. Bit-exact, fixed-point C source code for both the VADand CNG is to be ready for distribution by December 15th. It will be known as version 5.0 of the C code. Version5.0, running without silence compression, will have exactly the same operation and performance as version 4.0. Arun-time switch will enable the use of silence compression. France Telecom/CNET agreed to take responsibility for



preparing version 5.0. Participating organizations will be encouraged to help in the testing of this code byperforming objective measurements and/or subjective experiments with it. The goal is to characterize theperformance of the silence compression system. Using appropriate source material, the efficiency of the system canbe measured by measuring the amount of reduction in the size of the bitstream. A comparison of the performance ofversion 5.0 with and without silence compression is needed. Hopefully, some of these objective measurement testscan be performed before the next meeting of the LBC group. It was also pointed out that based upon previousexperiences with such systems, when operating in silence compression mode, G.723 might not successfully passnetwork signaling tones. Its performance needs to be investigated.

A proposed subjective test was also outlined. A comparison category rating test (CCR) will be used for many of thesame conditions that were included in the original selection phase tests of G.723. These include speaker dependency,input level variation, and background noise conditions such as babble and office noise. No test with music as abackground noise will be performed, as the CNG cannot be expected to render music. Listening will be done onboth loudspeakers and either headphones or hand sets, as was the case in the selection phase tests. The sourcematerial should be appropriate for testing the silence compression system, rather than simply using the typical 8second, two-sentence stimuli often used for category rating tests. Both IRS (Intermediate Reference System) and flat-weighted speech should be used for test samples. It would also be highly desirable if some form of conversationaltesting could also be performed using the VAD/CNG algorithm. The goal is to complete the subjective tests beforethe April 1996 meeting of the LBC group.

A change in draft Recommendation H.324 was requested to include silence compression as part of the capabilitiesexchange. The bitstream for silence frames had been defined in Annex A, but it was not part of the main body ofdraft Recommendation G.723. Only G.723 receivers that are in compliance with Annex A will be capable ofaccepting silence frames. At the present time, there will not be encoders or decoders having the silence compressionfeatures. However, in the future, once Annex A is approved, it may be the case that encoders with the silencecompression feature will try to use it with decoders that lack this feature, resulting in degraded speech quality. (Theoutput speech, after a silence interval, may be missing its initial consonant, resulting in degraded intelligibility.) Asolution to this problem would be to have information on silence compression exchanged as part of the call setupprotocol. Unless both G.723 terminals have the silence compression feature, it should not be used during the call.The editor of H.324 agreed to make this change. Once Annex A is approved by the ITU-T, inclusion of silencecompression capability will become mandatory for G.723 terminals.

FLOATING POINT SPECIFICATION OF G.723

M. Keith (Intel) had led a group in preparing an interoperable floating point version of G.723. LBC-95-325(Intel) is that status of the floating point specification for G.723. M. Keith’s original code was tested by FranceTelecom and then updated. The new version is called version 3.01 and is available from Intel, provided that a simpleregistration agreement is signed. (The last page of LBC-95-325 contains the form. M. Keith’s e-mail address [email protected].) Preliminary results for this coder appear promising. These results include bothobjective signal-to-noise ratio measurements and A-B subjective comparison tests. It was decided to proceed with afloating point specification of G.723 as Draft Annex B/G.723. It was also decided to receive guidance from theentire LBC group as to how much need be included in Annex B. Just as the bit-exact, fixed-point C source code isthe real basis for draft Recommendation G.723, the floating point C source code would be the real basis for AnnexB. In addition, it was proposed to provide implementation verification procedures for verifying compliance with thefloating point specification. Since the mathematical description of the coder is the same as that given in G.723,except for the precision, there seemed to be little to describe in the Annex other than the existence of the C code andthe verification tools and test vectors. Since versions 3.0 and 3.01 of the source code were already available to ITUmembers working in the LBC group, the Speech Coding Group invited active members to obtain the code and runtheir own comparisons of the two coders on speech files of their own choosing. Of specific interest were: (1)whether the floating point code produces similar outputs when compiled and run on different computers, and (2)reports of any large measured differences between the two coders. SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) and segmental SNRprograms for measuring the difference are available from the Software and Hardware Tools Group in SG 15.

A floating point specification for G.723 would need to be evaluated in a formal subjective test using A-Bcomparisons between the reference fixed-point coder and the possible floating point/fixed point combinations. Aproposed subjective test was defined. The Editor for G.723 agreed to prepare a separate document describing the testand circulate it to members of the LBC Group. The test plan will be based on a similar test used to demonstrateinteroperability between G.728 floating point and fixed point specifications. Since there will be no difference inquality produced by version 4.0 of the C code, the test could be performed on the basis of versions 3.0 and 3.01.



France Telecom agreed to perform the test in French and the Speech Coder Group is looking for one or more otherparticipants who are willing to conduct the test in another language.

The floating point code will be updated to match updates of the fixed point code described earlier in this document.In addition, the floating point group intends to continue working on the software tools and test vectors needed forverification. One or more proposals are expected to be submitted to the next meeting of the LBC Group.

MOBILE APPLICATIONS OF G.723

The Speech Coder Group met with the Mobile Group to discuss channel coding schemes to be combined with G.723for wireless channels. LBC-95-272 (J-M. Muller, Bosch Telecom, Germany) proposes a scalable channel codingscheme for G.723 that can be adapted for any wireless channel. It was the consensus to go forward with this workand submit a delayed contribution to the November 1995 SG 15 meeting proposing Annex C for G.723 concerningchannel coding of G.723 for mobile applications. The draft will be based upon LBC-95-272 . An ad-hocmobile/speech coding group will be formed for activities during the period between this LBC meeting and the nextone in January 1996 under the chairmanship of J-M. Muller (Bosch). Members of the group will investigate theproposed scalable channel coding scheme with the goal of refining and improving it. During the next 4 to 6 weeks,Bosch will work on creating portable ANSI C code for the scalable channel coder that will interwork with the G.723speech coder bitstream. Among the features of the code will be: at run-time, the bit rates of both the speech coderand the channel will be selectable. It was also agreed to provide GSM (Global System for Mobile communications)and TETRA (Trans European Trunked digital RAdio) bit error patterns. Members of the ad-hoc mobile/speechcoding group were invited to experiment with this software. In addition to gaining familiarity with the system, theywere invited to investigate the bit error sensitivity tables for the 5.3 and 6.3 kbit/s speech coders to determine ifchanges are needed. The current tables were based solely on objective SNR measurements and may need someadjustment based on human perception. The members are to investigate the effects of changing the CRC (CyclicRedundancy Code) code from 3 bits to 4 bits. While increasing the number of bits will reduce the number of unde-tected frame erasures, it will also reduce the number of bits available for channel error correction. They wereinstructed to report any problems that they discover with the code, as well as any solutions they may find for theseproblems. In addition, they are to suggest methods for testing the efficacy of the proposed channel coding scheme,and they were invited to submit formal contributions for formal testing at the next LBC meeting.

OTHER MATTERS

The Speech Coder Group discussed several other contributions. LBC-95-262 (R. Ivy, Electronic SystemsProducts for Iterated Systems, Inc.) is the Draft Proposed Requirements Document for Real-Time Audio/VisualConversational Services Applications. It was found that 300 ms delay for the audio codec, including processing, istoo large. It was agreed that this large delay would be a major impedance to real-time conversations. This opinionwas conveyed to R. Ivy to provide feedback to MPEG4.

LBC-95-258 (B. Haskell, AT&T) is the report of the H.26P/L Ad Hoc Committee. The Speech Coder Groupnoted in this report the large number (32) of audio contributions to MPEG4.

On the issue of a new number for G.723, a new number was preferred to avoid confusion with the previousRecommendation G.723. Further, preference was for it to be a previously unused 3 digit G series number and notG.7231 or any other 4 digit code unless no 3 digit codes are available. I. Varga (Deutsche Thomson Brandt) agreedto take over as Editor for G.723 and Chair of the ad-hoc LBC Speech Coding Group effective after the November1995 SG 15 meeting. R. Cox (AT&T Bell Labs) will continue up until that meeting.

MULTIPLEX (H.223)

The chair of this work was V. Eyuboglu, Motorola. The Multiplex Group reviewed the revised draftRecommendation H.223 given in LBC-95-286© (V. Eyuboglu, Editor H.223, Motorola ISG). The Editor presentedthe changes in the new draft relative to the July white paper described in LBC-95-255 , the Multiplex Octobermeeting report. All proposed changes were accepted, except one that related to the XOR (Exclusive OR) proceduredescribed in LBC-95-277 (D. Lindbergh, PictureTel), Improved H.223 Error Detection. The relevant sections ofH.245 on the Multiplex Entry Syntax and Procedure were compared against corresponding text in the H.223 Julywhite paper. Some discrepancies were discovered, and text was added to H.223 or H.245 to remove thesediscrepancies.

LBC-95-277 and LBC-95-292 (H. Singh, AT&T) were reviewed. LBC-95-277 proposes that each octet inthe H.223 MUX-PDU (Protocol Data Unit Multiplexer) body be XORed with the header octet in both transmitter



and receiver. LBC-95-292 proposes adding verbiage to the SDLs (Specification and Description Languages) inH.245 to improve clarity. After a fairly long debate, it was decided not to adopt these proposals. It was agreed,however, to include the XOR procedure proposed in LBC-95-277 as an option in H.223, but not to use thisoption in H.324.

The Editor will prepare the final version of Recommendation H.223 for submission in November to SG 15 as adelayed contribution and will make it available on the H.324 ftp site.

COMMUNICATION CONTROL (H.245)

B. Welsh, BT Labs, was the chair of this work. A meeting of the H.245 Ad Hoc Group was held just prior to theLBC meeting in Darmstadt. The report on this group’s work is contained in LBC-95-261 (B. Welsh, Chair, BTLabs). It contains 21 items that summarize the issues brought up by the H.245 Ad Hoc Group and has four annexeswritten by M. Nilsson (BT Labs) containing alternative text and syntax for some of the procedures. The H.245 AdHoc Group reached agreement on most of these items during the meeting, leaving a few more significant issues to beresolved at the main meeting.

LBC-95-307 (D. Skran AT&T, editor H.22Z) discusses mapping H.221/H.230 (H.320 frame structure and H.320control and indication) commands to H.245 commands. It notes that unless mapping is defined, interoperabilityproblems will be likely.

During the main meeting, three significant issues were discussed and agreement was reached.

1. Actions to be taken in the event of timer expiry

It was decided to put timer expiry procedures for capability exchange and master-slave determination into H.245with some editing to the SDLs and text of the procedures section based upon the proposal given in LBC-95-331 (H. Singh, AT&T Bell Labs).

2. Bi-directional logical channel signaling

It was decided to adopt the proposal on bi-directional logical channel signaling suggested in LBC-95-296 (M.Nilsson, BT Labs) with a modification to require that a responding terminal send an open logical channel PDUafter it has sent its acknowledgment to the initiating terminal.

3. Master-slave determination procedures

It was decided to adopt the proposal of additional verbiage given in LBC-95-292 (H. Singh, AT&T Bell Labs)which requires some modification to the procedures to prevent a terminal sending an MSD (Master SlaveDetermination) PDU with a new status determination number unless it has received a REJECT message from thefar-end terminal.

An addendum to LBC-95-261 was produced documenting the changes; it was agreed to append this to a liaison tothe AVC (Audiovisual Conferencing) group meeting the following week. The H.245 draft was edited according tothe agreed upon changes, and it was put onto the LBC and AVC reflectors shortly after the end of the meeting.

SYSTEM (H.324)

The H.324 Group, chaired by D. Lindbergh (PictureTel), reviewed LBC-95-250 , the Editor’s proposed final draft ofH.324. It incorporated a few editorial improvements to the text that were accepted, except as noted below. Inaddition, changes were proposed in the following contributions to this meeting.

LBC-95-281 (J. Magill, Q1/14 Rapporteur - SAVD, AT&T) is a proposed liaison statement from Q1/14 SAVDto Q5/8, Q19/8 and Q2/15 (Multimedia Terminal). It requests comments on the application of framed QADM(Quadrature Audio Data Modulation) to V.34 modulation. Four contributions are attached. Three of these aretechnical contributions that were reviewed at the October meeting of SG 14 WP 1. The remaining contribution isthe meeting report on high speed modems from Q1/14.

LBC-95-282 (J. Magill, Q1/14 Rapporteur - SAVD, AT&T) is a liaison statement from Q1/14 SAVD to Q5/8and Q2/15 (Multimedia Terminal) requesting views on the usefulness of a new procedure called V.dispatch. Threeattachments are included:• A proposal from Microsoft for the definition of a standardized method of switching services using a common

modulation mode.• A liaison statement from Q10/8 on the same subject• A report of an ad hoc meeting on V.dispatch that took place at the Q1/14 SAVD meeting held in August.



LBC-95-284 is the draft Recommendation V.8bis. LBC-95-335 provides copies of drafts V.dsvd-system,V.dsvd-control and V.gmux.

LBC-95-293 (H. Singh, AT&T) proposes changes to section 6.6.1 (Interface to multiplex) of draftRecommendation H.324.

LBC-95-322 (D. Lappe, Robert Bosch GmbH) describes some basic constraints for the interworking between fixedand mobile networks.

LBC-95-327 (F. Henkel, Deutsche Telecom) discusses call control procedure for videophone hybrid (H.320/324)terminals connected to the ISDN.

LBC-95-328 (F. Henkel, Deutsche Telecom) discusses videophone interworking connected to the ISDN and to thePSTN identifying the problems associated with utilizing an interworking function (IWF). It notes the need to definehow the called party number can be delivered to the IWF.

LBC-95-331 (H.245 Ad Hoc Group) proposes text for addition to draft Recommendation H.324. It addressesactions to be taken when certain exception conditions occur.

The following changes to H.324 (LBC-95-250) were agreed upon:

Changes affecting H.324 draft for November 1995 SG 15 Decision:• Will add note to 6.5.3 (Mode preferences) saying that compliance with received Request Mode messages is

optional (but preferred). Probably: “Transmitters may deny such requests, but should comply if possible.”• Will insert a new 6.5.4 (in front of the existing 6.5.4), covering H.245 timer and counter values. This will say

(from item (b) of LBC-95-293) that all H.245 timer values shall be at least N400*RT delay, and that retrycounters N201, N206, and N2061 (all to be defined in H.245) should be at least 3.

• Section 11.1.2 (System loopback) to be removed and marked “For Further Study” since all proposed mechanismsto make this work depend on as-yet-undefined V.34/V.25ter features. It was felt that this should probably beaddressed by V.34 directly and may not be needed in H.324 at all. In any case, it needs more work.

• Section 11.1.3 (Media Loopback) will add at end of first paragraph: “Media loopback provided a subjective test ofH.324 operation through the far-end codec for human user evaluation. It should be used only on video and audiochannels.”

• In section 6.3 (Modem), remove references to V.8bis from first paragraph. Add “NOTE: Support of V.8bis isoptional, but it is the intention of ITU-T to add a requirement for Rec. V.8bis in the May 1996 revision of Rec.H.324. Implementers are encouraged to include V.8bis support as soon as possible prior to that time.”

• In section 6.7 (Audio channels), change “G.723 receivers shall be capable of accepting silence frames.” to “...mayoptionally be...” for November 1995 version only (restore for May 1996). Add note that ITU-T intends to makesilence frame decode mandatory in May 1996.

• In section 7.2.2 (V.8bis procedure, Phase B), replace second paragraph with “If the terminal is conditioned to godirectly into digital communication mode, phase B shall be bypassed, proceeding directly to phase C. If theterminal is conditioned for initial analog telephony voice mode, the terminal shall proceed to phase C when(bullet) the user manually causes the terminal to initiate a V.8bis transaction, or (bullet) the terminal detects aninitiation signal from the distant terminal.”

• In section 7.3.2 (V.8bis procedure, Phase C), remove entire section prior to “Upon completion...” and replacewith “The terminal shall follow the call start-up procedure described in Rec. V.8bis. If the V.8bis proceduredetects that the distant terminal is not capable of V.8bis, but is capable of V.8, the Phase C procedure of V.8(above) shall be followed. If the V.8bis procedure detects a distant H.324 terminal, the V.34 start-up procedureshall be followed.”

• Replace Appendix I (V.8bis codepoints) with an Appendix (normative) describing the actual V.8bis H.324codepoints and their proper use. (This will be non-normative in the November version, but will be a normativeAnnex in the May 1996 version.).

• Add text to Multiplex section saying that optional H.223 XOR procedure (LBC-95-277) shall NOT be used inH.324 terminals.

• Replace Appendix I (V.8bis) with new version, including notes regarding plans for May 1996.• Add Bit/Octet order Appendix (non-normative) from e-mail & V.8bis (LBC-95-284) page 7.

Changes affecting H.324 draft for November 1995 SG 15 Determination (May 1996 Decision) in addition to above:• Update V.8bis reference.• In section 6.3 (Modem), add requirement for V.8bis, remove V.8bis note.• Remove section 7.2.1 (V.8 procedure, Phase B).



• In section 6.7 (Audio channels), restore “All G.723 receivers shall be capable of accepting silence frames.”,remove NOTE about this.

• In section 7.2.2 (V.8bis procedure), strike “When the procedures of V.8bis are in use” from first paragraph.• In section 7.3 (Phase C), rename sections (and reorder) to show that V.8bis procedures are required, and V.8

procedure is used only as a fallback.• Add Appendix (non-normative) on use of V.ib and V.25ter with H.324.

This was an open list. There was intention to add additional items before May 1996.

MOBILE (AV.32M)

D. Lappe (Robert Bosch GmbH) was the chair of the Mobile Ad Hoc Group.

REQUIREMENTS

LBC-95-256 and LBC-95-347 are the reports of the mobile ad-hoc Committee. LBC-95-256 notes that ashort term introduction of a mobile videotelephone is possible. Stimulated by LBC-95-294 and LBC-95-295 ,from BT, the requirements for a mobile videotelephone were discussed. The following was agreed upon:• H.324 should be adapted to be able to be transmitted via wireless networks. The same requirements as for the

PSTN-videotelephone are assumed, for example, delay (one way) < 300 ms.• A transparent channel is assumed.• AV.32M must be scalable in a wide range of network constraints.

LBC-95-294 , Experiments (1990 to 1993) on the transmission of compressed video (H.261) over radio links (BT),proposes a transmission protocol for use in AV.32M.

LBC-95-295 (BT) discusses the current status and direction of work on the mobile multimedia standards, AV.32M,and expresses concern that some of the currently proposed ideas would not be optimal from the interworking point ofview.

H.245, AV.24M

A rate adaptation between PSTN and Mobile was considered necessary. This is possible with H.245. Thepossibility to open a logical channel for mobile networks had been requested and discussed with the systems group.

AV.26M

LBC-95-304 (R. Fischer, Robert Bosch GmbH) is draft Recommendation AV.26M, video coding for low bitratecommunication.

LBC-95-267 (Telecommunications Inst., Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg) is a proposal for an H.263 compatiblemethod for robust video transmission in a mobile environment. Feedback information is used to stop spatio-temporal error propagation.

LBC-95-291 (NTT DoCoMo) describes a method that utilizes priority based re-ordering technology for errorcontrol and tough synchronization. UEP (Unequal Error Protection) in combination with the EREC (ErrorResilience Entropy Code) coding scheme is applied.

LBC-95-294 (BT) describes hardware experiments performed on a transmission of compressed video over theDECT (Digital European Cordless Telephone) radio link with H.261 at 32 kbit/s. It is a proposal to use a hybridscheme with ARQ (Automatic Repeat Request) and FEC (Forward Error Corrector) Interleaver.

LBC-95-295 (BT) considers the current status of AV.32M, and expresses concerns about interworkingrequirements, syntax re-ordering, and fixed length multiplex patterns. The wish is expressed to have a rate adaptationpossible, signaled with H.245.

LBC-95-321 (D. Lappe, Mobile Ad Hoc Group Chair, Robert Bosch GmbH) provides comments on LBC-95-294 and LBC-95-295 . It attempts to answer questions and address concerns.

LBC-95-309 (X. Ran, National Semiconductor) describes a core experiment with ARQ. It is proposed to usesub-videos with re-transmission and intra refreshing. The GOB (Group of Blocks) boundaries are treated as pictureboundaries. This provides a considerable improvement in picture quality. Hence, the Video Group was askedwhether or not it is possible to have this proposal included in the actual H.263. It was decided to use PEI andPSPARE codes in H.263 for that.



LBC-95-311 (R. Fischer and R. Mann Pelz, Robert Bosch GmbH) presents simulation results for the TCON(Telenor Research’s error concealment decoder) model and the model described in the proposal for the draft, which ischaracterized by UEP and a soft output (LBC-95-304). Although the gain in picture quality was up to 1.5 dB inSNR, it was decided not to consider this proposal for the mobile standard since the delay of one frame is notacceptable and it changes H.263. LBC-95-326 (R. Mann Pelz, Robert Bosch GmbH) describes a technique toenable a channel sensitive error detection with usage of bitwise reliability information (Soft Output ViterbiAlgorithm, SOVA).

LBC-95-318 (J. Nowak, Motorola) requests that for a selection of a particular FEC, the expected application,channel condition, and video quality are considered.

LBC-95-323 (Ericsson) is a proposal to improve the fixed length code table for the DCINTRA and TCOEFF.

The possibility of introducing a codepoint in the H.263 bitstream for mobile had been discussed together with theVideo Group. It was instead decided to use the PEI and PSPARE bits.

VIDEO EXPERIMENTS

It was intended to provide a complete technical solution for the AV.26M including ARQ, flexible FEC, and aflexible interleaver. It was assumed that adaptation needed to be made to the networks GSM, DECT, and PHS(Personal Handyphone System). Other than this, the AV.26M will be flexible enough to be adapted to other mobilenetworks. The attempt is not to change H.263 itself. NTT DoCoMo checked whether it is possible to provide amobile/ mobile PHS sequence (also for the MUX experiments).

The following experiments were agreed upon:• ARQ -- Proceed with the experiments according to LBC-95-309 . Comparisons between the methods proposed

in LBC-95-267 and LBC-95-309 .• FEC+INT.• LBC-95-323 proposal with the following schedule: 1) specification of the simulation conditions, 2) presenting

the simulation results to the reflector, and 3) decisions and document at the next meeting.• It was agreed to use no special protection on the PSC (Picture Start Code).

AV.22M

LBC-95-276© is the draft Recommendation AV.22M, Multiplexing Protocol for Low Bitrate Multimedia MobileCommunication. It includes the changes agreed upon at the June meeting. Although the performance of the agreedscheme has been approved by simulations in LBC-95-275 (P. Crespo and J. Garcia-Frias, Telefonica Investigaciony Desarrollo) and LBC-95-268 (J. Villasenor and B. Dowling, UCLA), it was requested by the Multiplex Group toperform experiments in order to compare the AV.22M with an approach where the existing H.223 remains mainlyunchanged. LBC-95-298 (T. Nakai, OKI, Japan) comments on the AV.22M proposal and raises problems withthe fixed length packets of the MUX PDU. It is also remarked that an ARQ is not included in the current scheme,and that the partition of channels into blocks of minimum length causes delay. It was desired to improve this issueparticularly.

The following steps toward a mobile multiplexer were discussed and agreed upon:• Simulation with H.223 plus additional error protection (H.263 + G.723 bitstreams are to be sent). AV.22M =

H.223 + error protocol.• Strategies to achieve a stable state: a) FEC, ARQ, FEC+ARQ -- The MUX bitstream is transparent. No special

error protection of sync and Header. b) The structure of the MUX-PDU is known to the error protocol:– Replacement of 8 bit flag by a barker code– Special protection of the header– Protection of the payload in the AL

• Simulation of the AV.22M proposal (LBC-95-276©) with use of fixed length PDU. The possibility of ARQmust be provided. ARQ must be used in the same way in both cases.

• Statistical investigation in Synchronization capabilities for the first two experiments above. It will be checked ifthe Reed Solomon code already available to the group is sufficient for the first experiment. If not, an executablefile for a proper equal error correction will be provided to the reflector.



E-MAIL PROCEDURE TO DEFINE THE EXPERIMENTS

Since it was intended that AV.32M be finalized at the January LBC meeting, the following procedure was agreedupon:• Proponents were requested to define experiments in detail on e-mail, inviting parallel experiments prior to the

next meeting.• If there is only one experimenter and there are no objections on the reflector, it was agreed that the result will be

considered by the LBC group.

It was requested that the experimenters provide results and changes to the experiment on e-mail.

H.263L FUTURE VIDEO CODER

B. Haskell (AT&T) chaired this group. LBC-95-306 (JCG on AVMMS) is the July meeting report of the JointCoordination Group (JCG) on AudioVisual and MultiMedia Services (AVMMS). It was presented at the openingplenary and indicated that the ITU AVMMS organization suggested that the ITU should not investigate advancedvideo coding techniques going beyond H.263. LBC-95-302 (report by R. Ivy) notes that the MPEG-4 committee,when requested to reserve a profile for real time audio/visual conversational services and develop a verification model,(VM) for the applications area, stated that it did not expect to have profiles and that VMs were not expected to ad-dress application areas. The LBC Experts Group disagreed with both these conclusions, and support for this LBCposition was provided in LBC-95-303 (R. Ivy, ESP/ISI), Rationale for the Advanced Video Coding Project -H.263L. LBC-95-303 outlines the “Requirements for Real-Time Audio-Visual Conversational ServicesApplications.” It was reviewed by the LBC Group, modified, and fully approved. It will be submitted to theISO/IEC MPEG-4 meeting as a liaison document.

H.324 TESTING

C. Gates (Creative Labs) chaired this work. The following is the report of the work (LBC-95-254) of the H.324Test Ad Hoc Committee during the interim period between the June LBC meeting and the October LBC meeting.

At the June LBC meeting, it was agreed to set up an e-mail reflector where participants in the Ad Hoc group couldpost non-real-time H.223 bit streams as well as discussions concerning H.324 test. Several contributions were madecontaining H.223 bit streams conforming to a plan defined in LBC-95-199 (Creative Labs) that defines real timetests over the PSTN. These bit streams were decoded by some of the companies participating, and the results werereported back to the contributor.

There were problems with getting the bit stream reflector to work properly, but these problems were resolved.

Some ambiguities were found relating to the H.223 CRC. These were reported to the H.223 Ad Hoc Group forclarification.

LBC-95-332 (C. Gates, Creative Labs) describes a set of test scenarios that could be used for testing componentsof the H.324 system in real time. It was discussed as a basis for real time inter-operability testing, and somemodifications were suggested. LBC-95-332RevA contains the revised document. Several members pointed out thatfurther work in non-real-time testing needed to be done.

The idea of having an ad hoc meeting in January where companies could bring implementations to test wassuggested. Although many members felt that this would be a good idea, nothing like this had been done before inthe ITU, and it was pointed out that some companies may have problems with this approach. It was agreed to lookinto this idea further before planning a meeting.

A contact sheet was passed around so that interested parties could sign up as contacts for H.324 inter-operabilitytesting. The thought was that private contacts could be made to set up some tests between the interested parties.These tests could either follow LBC-95-332 or other proposals created privately. This contact sheet will bedistributed over the e-mail reflector.

The issue of H.263 conformance testing was raised. The idea was to have a set of bit streams that test the corners ofthe standard that various implementers could use to verify their implementation for conformance with the standard.No one at the meeting was interested in this area.

Contributions toward defining the inter-operability as well as conformance tests were encouraged. The forum for thisdiscussion will be the e-mail reflector. The reflector e-mail address is “[email protected]”. To sub-scribe to this reflector, send commands to “[email protected]”.



Mohammad R. MotamediSystems Technology GroupNational Semiconductor2900 Semiconductor DriveMail Stop D3-969Santa Clara, CA 95052-8090Phone : 408) 721-8765 Fax : 408) 721-7431e-mail: [email protected]

DTE/DCE INTERFACE

T. Geary (Rockwell Int’l) chaired this work. LBC-95-259 is the draft report of the DTE/DCE ad hoc interim workJune through October. The goal of this group was to define what, if any, additions needed to be requested from SG14 in the proposed V.25ter (or other emerging recommendations) for various configurations of videophoneapplications. During this meeting, the DTE/DCE group met as a part of the Systems Group.

Discussion focused on LBC-95-315 (L. Brown, Q7/14 Rapporteur, Motorola ISG) and LBC-95-316 (L. Brown,Q7/14 Rapporteur, Motorola ISG) and revealed outstanding progress of the work in the DTE/DCE interface area.LBC-95-315 is a liaison from Q7/14 providing Draft Annex B/V.25ter, Synchronous Data Modes, Draft AnnexA/V.25ter, V.8 and/or V.8bis procedures and Draft V.ib (in-band signaling). LBC-95-316 is a liaison statementfrom Q7/14 providing a status report on DTE/DCE interface work from the Hood River meeting August 13, 1995including a data port for videophones. The group reviewed the annex to draft Recommendation V.ib under theguidance of L. Brown and requested minor clarification in a couple of areas. (Note: The V.ib draft document wasdetermined for resolution approval at the October SG 14 Working Party meeting, but L. Brown will coordinate theminor changes noted.)

LBC-95-317 (L. Brown, TR-30) discusses DTE/ DCE signaling and control for GSTN visual telephone terminalapplications and the need for additional functionality in the data port in self-contained videophones. LBC-95-269(T.A. Geary, Rockwell) contains a liaison from TR-30 to T1A1.5 requesting that consideration be given toextending the functionality of the data port to provide the ability for a DTE to perform control and/or monitoring oflocal operational parameters of the videophone. Discussion resulted in agreement to generate a preliminaryrequirements list. Further, it was agreed to generate a liaison to SG 14, contained in LBC-95-339 (T. Geary,DTE/DCE Ad Hoc Chair), including this list for SG 14’s planning purposes. LBC-95-340 (D. Schaphorst, LBCRapporteur) is a liaison to TR-30 and T1A1.5 acknowledging their contributions on this subject and informing themof the progress. It will include a copy of the liaison to SG 14 (LBC-95-339) as an attachment.

The interested members were reminded that there is an e-mail reflector for DTE/DCE related items [email protected]. This reflector can be subscribed to by sending an e-mail request [email protected].

The need for continuation of this Ad Hoc Group was discussed, and it was felt that there was still sufficient efforts torecommend its continuation until the January 1996 meeting. Its work will include continued coordination with SG14’s work on DTE/DCE interfaces and on developing example sessions for use by implementers of the new V.ib.

NON-CONVERSATIONAL SERVICES

LBC-95-257 is the report of the non-conversational services ad-hoc committee from B. Welsh (BT), chair of thiswork. It includes a functional mapping of H.245 and DSM-CC.

LBC-95-273 (BT) discusses whether an extension to H.324 is necessary for information access. It concludes thatinformation access is currently not supported by H.324 but that it may be possible to provide this functionalityusing another standard at the application level, such as T.120 or MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia ExpertsGroup).

LBC-95-274 (B. Welsh, BT) provides applications (messaging, audio-on-demand, surveillance, home shopping andbanking) and requirements for H.324 information access.

It was suggested that DSM-CC (Digital Storage Media - Command and Control) might be a suitable command andcontrol protocol for accessing information using H.324. It was agreed to send a liaison to MPEG/DSM-CC to asktheir opinion as to whether this is appropriate for a low bitrate system such as H.324.



There was some discussion of the work in Q7/8 on information and document architectures and in Q11/8 on networkprotocols for multimedia exchange. Concerning T.120 and MHEG use with H.324 for information access, LBC-95-273 (BT) concludes that T.120 could be used by defining new application protocols or enhancing existing ones(e.g., extensions to T.126 for text support are currently under consideration); MHEG is a framework for multimediapresentations. The protocol is object oriented and has a well-defined bitstream using ASN.1. An MHEG Engineacts as a client, requesting MHEG objects from the server. This client-server model is more natural for informationaccess than the peer-to-peer model implicit in the current H.324.

It was agreed to send a liaison to SG 8 for forwarding to appropriate questions and to also send to MHEG. It seemedsuitable to use the text of the liaison contained in LBC-95-247 from the June meeting. LBC-95-247 is aliaison statement from the LBC Rapporteur’s Experts Group to SG 7, SG 8, SG 14, the Internet Task Force, and theInternational Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium requesting comment and consideration of non-conversationalservices using H.324.

LBC-95-274 (BT) was proposed as a start for producing a requirements document. It contains a list of applicationsdrawn from LBC-95-197 (B. Welsh, BT) and a currently empty matrix listing these applications against an initiallist of potential requirements. There were no objections against the structure of this document, and it was proposedto continue the work of the Ad Hoc Group in order to develop it further.

There were some thoughts concerning the possibility of coordinating the work of this group with other groupsinterested in using other types of terminals such as ISDN multimedia terminals and V.dsvd for non-conversationalpurposes.

The Chair encouraged LBC Experts to contribute to the work of the Ad Hoc Group by e-mail. The e-mail address ofthe reflector is: [email protected].

AD HOC COMMITTEES

Fourteen Ad Hoc Committees were established to continue until SG 15 meets in San Jose in January 1996.

Richard Schaphorst, Delta Information Systems

THE CSR LIBRARY

Subscribers may order copies of documents shown in boldface type from Communications StandardsReview, where not controlled. We havea large library of standards work in process and can help you locateother information you may need.



LBC RAPPORTEUR’S MEETING ROSTER, OCTOBER 17 – 20, 1995, DARMSTADT, GERMANY

Richard Schaphorst, Delta Information Systems Rapporteur

AustraliaU. of New South Wales Michael FraterU. of Sydney Marwan Jabri

CanadaMotorola ISG Les Brown

FinlandNokia Petri Latva-RaskuNokia Research Center Jacek Newweglowski

FranceFrance Telecom/CNET Phil BoucheronFrance Telecom/CNET Isabelle HaignereFrance Telecom/CNET Dominique MassalouxFrance Telecom/CNET Jean-Pierre PetitLab. d’Electonique Philips Franck LecanuLab. d’Electonique Philips Philippe PerrotLab. d’Electonique Philips Estelle SonnicSAGEM P. SabatierThomson CERDF Michel KerdranvatThomson, Multimedia Thierry Bassi

GermanyBosch Telecom Jorg-Martin MullerDeutsche Telecom Friedheim HenkelDeutsche Telecom Peter ListDeutsche Thomson Brandt Imre VargaIntermetall Miodrag TemerinacRobert Bosch GmbH Ralf FischerRobert Bosch GmbH Dirk LappeRobert Bosch GmbH Peter MangoldRobert Bosch GmbH Peter VogelRobert Bosch GmbH Joachim WolfSiemens Istvan SebestyenSiemens AG Raphael HaermensUniversity Erlangen-Nbg. Niko FarberUniversity Erlangen-Nbg. Bernd GirodUniversity Erlangen-Nbg. Eckehard StinbachUniversity Erlangen-Nbg. Thomas Wiegand

IsraelAudio Codes Ltd. Leon BialikAudio Codes Ltd. Felix FlomenDSP Group/Tel-Aviv U. Yair BeeryImagesoft Avishai Silvershatz

JapanMatsushita Yutaka MachidaNTT DoCoMo Toshiro KawaharaOKI Electric Toshihisa Nakia

KoreaKorea Telecom Joon Hyeon JeonKorea Telecom Hwang-Seok OhSamsung Elec. Gui-Young JungSamsung Elec. Kyu-Hwan Sim

NetherlandsKPN Research Karel Rijkse

NorwayTelenor Research Gisle Bjontegaard

SpainTelefonica Pedro Cresso

SwedenEricsson Goran BangTelia Research AB Ola Andersson

TaiwanCCL/ITRI Hsun-Chang Hsieh

UKAT&T John MagillBT Labs Peter SalmonBT Labs Bill WelshBT Labs Mike Whybray

USAAT&T Fred BurgAT&T Richard PaulsAT&T Hardish SinghAT&T Bell Labs Mike BuckleyAT&T Bell Labs Richard CoxAT&T Bell Labs Barry HaskellAtmel Abbas TehraniChromatic Research Stefan EckartCompression Labs Sen-ching CheungComtech Labs Wayne CatlettComtech Labs Sinan OthmanCreative Labs Corey GatesDCT Tassos MarkasRTI/DCT Cliff PowersEss Technology Yuhai MaoGTE Labs Faramarz AzadeganIBM Zon-Yin ShaeIIT Keith BarracloughIntel Corporation Tom GardosIntel Corporation Chris HansenIntel Corporation Mike KeithIterated Systems Richard IvyIterated Systems John MullerIterated Systems Michael ZeugKNK Consulting Kristine KneibMotorola Christopher ClantonMotorola ISG Vedat EyubogluNational Semi. Mohammad MotamediNational Semi. Xiaonong RanPictureTel David LindberghRockwell Int’l Albert HsuehRockwell Telecom. Tom GearyScientific-Atlantic Arturo RodriguezScientific-Atlantic Subramania SudharsananTexas Instruments Yu HuangTexas Instruments Jennifer WebbU.S. Robotics George LandsburgU.S. Robotics Chester SzcaepuchaUniv. of California John VillasenorVivo Software Chet Graham



REPORT OF THE EXPERTS GROUP MEETING ON G.DSVDOCTOBER 23 – 25, 1995, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

The main objective for the meeting was to review the two short-listed coders, namely those from Audio Codes/DSPGroup and from the University of Sherbrooke, and make a selection such that a draft Recommendation could beproposed for determination at the November Study Group 15 meeting (see report in this issue of CSR-T).

DSVD-95-45 Rev.2 , the report of the September 14-15 meeting in Bethesda, was discussed, and further amended.The final version of the report is DSVD-95-45 Rev.4. While some reservations remained about this report, theChair pointed out that a single summary report would be prepared at the end of the meeting for presentation to theNovember meeting of SG 15, and that the individual meeting reports would not go forward.

REVIEW OF INCOMING LIAISON STATEMENTS

DSVD-95-47 is a liaison from the Q.1/14 SAVD Rapporteur Group generated during the WP 1/14 meeting inOctober in Munich. The liaison acknowledged the progress made on the speech coder, and in turn referred the G.dsvdGroup to the maturing work on the other DSVD component Recommendations. These were made available to themeeting as :

• DSVD-95-48 : Draft Rec. V.dsvd-s, dsvd system definition• DSVD-95-49©: Draft Rec. V.dsvd-c, dsvd control procedures• DSVD-95-50 : Draft Rec. V.gmux, V.42 LAPM-based multiplexer

(Note: the drafts contained in DSVD-95-48 and DSVD-95-49© have subsequently been edited further.)

DSVD-95-53, a liaison from Study Group 12 - Speech Quality Expert Group (SQEG), notes that due to the shorttimescales and other work, SQEG has not had as much involvement in G.dsvd as for other SG 15 speech coders, andwishes to be kept informed of the progress of the work.

DSVD-95-54 (SG 12) requests information on the total one-way transmission time for a DSVD modem. Itincludes a copy of G.114 One Way Transmission Time which provides details on the effect of delay on a telephonecall.

DSVD-95-55 is the response from SG 14 back to SG 15 listing SVD applications. It states that SG 14 does notconsider coder delay to be a significant issue.

DSVD-95-56 from the Q.4,8/15 Group notes their desire to utilize the V.42 LAPM-based multiplexer fornetwork-based multimedia applications. Desiring to maintain compatibility with the DSVD work, they note theirneed to add some capabilities (e.g., UIH frame) and a new control channel for terminal to network controlcommunications.

REVIEW OF CODER COMPLEXITY

The proponents of the two coders (Audio Codes/DSP Group and the University of Sherbrooke) introducedcontributions giving updated information on the complexity of their respective coders.

DSVD-95-57 (Audio Codes/DSP Group) gives information based on an implementation on a MotorolaDSP56156 as: worst case MIPS - 9.1, RAM - less than 1.6 kwords, ROM - less than 5.2 kwords. With regard tothe MIPS figure, a function-by-function breakdown is provided, as are figures for additional memory required if thecoder were implemented together with the G.723 coder.

DSVD-95-59 (University of Sherbrooke) gives information based on an implementation on a Texas InstrumentsTMS320c50 DSP as: worst case MIPS - 11.95, RAM - 2038 words, ROM - 9.08 kwords. Again a function-by-function breakdown is provided. The contribution also provides information on the complexity reduction likely tobe achieved through the use of the more recent Texas Instruments TMS320C54x DSP technology. MIPS reductionwas estimated at 30% and the ROM requirement was also expected to reduce through the use of the richer instructionset.

The intent of the work of the ad-hoc group led by J. Johnston (Rockwell International) was to verify these figures.During this session, a 2.8 second speech segment, from the original speech files as used in the COMSAT tests, wasprocessed on DSP assembly language simulators running on PCs. Details of these test files are contained inDSVD-95-64 . Complexity figures were assessed from observation of cycle counts and map files. The DSPsimulator output was also compared with that from the “C” code executable used during the subjective testing in



July. In both cases there was a match, although the University of Sherbrooke required extra time to eliminate a bugin the DSP code before this could be proven. The conclusion of the ad-hoc group, as presented in DSVD-95-60(plus verbal update confirming resolution of the USH problem), was that the figures presented in DSVD-95-57and DSVD-95-59 were fair and accurate for those DSPs.

The following additional contributions were presented on the subject of complexity.

DSVD-95-62 (Rockwell International) points out that factors such as programming expertise and DSPperformance need to be taken into account in comparing algorithm implementations from different sources ondifferent devices. Using analysis from Berkeley Design Technology (BDT) Inc. on normalized benchmark cyclecounts, Rockwell estimates that both coders require less than 10 MIPS on either a Motorola 56156 or a TITMS320c54x DSPs, and require more than 10 MIPS on a TI TMS320c5x DSP.

DSVD-95-68 (Texas Instruments) discusses the complexity improvement available through the use of theoptimized instruction set and enhanced architecture of the TMS320c54x rather than the TMS320c5x. Using otherspeech coders as benchmarks, a MIPS improvement factor of 1.4 to 1.5 is predicted.

DSVD-95-70 (France Telecom/CNET) discusses some of the issues concerned with the selection of a DSVDspeech coder, primarily complexity assessment. It points out the difficulty of making complexity comparisons fromimplementations on different DSPs; it discusses the use of weighted MOPS; and it proposes approximate weightingfactors for differing DSPs which are broadly in line with the other contributions.

The information from these various contributions seemed consistent in suggesting that the coder from the Universityof Sherbrooke could meet the 10 MIPS limit if implemented on an appropriate DSP.

PRESENTATION OF DOCUMENTS RELEVANT TO CODER SELECTION

The meeting considered some additional documents before discussing the selection of a coder. The latest descriptionsof the two coders are contained in DSVD-95-58 for Audio Codes/ DSP Group, and DSVD-95-65 for theUniversity of Sherbrooke. DSVD-95-66 (Audio Codes) provides additional information on the bit allocation fortheir coder indicating that, as not all of the possible combinations were used, it should be possible to minimize theoccurrence of bit sequences which simulate HDLC flags, thereby reducing the need for bit stuffing. The resultingdiscussion concluded that careful calculation would be needed to assess the potential benefit.

DSVD-95-63 (Rockwell International) presents an analysis of the data bandwidth required for each of the proposedG.dsvd coders, and for varying overhead in the V.gmux multiplexer. It shows that for coders with a 10 ms framesize, the bit rate is particularly important if operation over 14.4 kbit/s modems is required. During the discussion, itwas noted that the addition of the suspend/resume feature as an option in V.gmux had been agreed by the OctoberWP 1/14 meeting in Munich, and this would reduce the multiplexer overhead. On this subject, Delayed documentD.154 from the WP 1/14 meeting was made available as DSVD-95-67 for information. It gives a comparison ofoverhead between the basic and suspend/resume modes of operation in V.gmux.

DSVD-95-52 (PictureTel) addresses interoperability with other multimedia standards, i.e., between DSVDterminals, and H.320 and H.324 terminals for videoconferencing on the ISDN and GSTN, respectively. It notes thatwhile this is an important issue, it has not yet been achieved. Recognizing that the multiplex structure (H.221) ofH.320 terminals requires speech codecs operating at multiples of 8 kbit/s, the contribution proposes that theadoption of the University of Sherbrooke coder for G.dsvd, being interoperable with G.729, would facilitate a G.729-based interworking solution across all the terminals.

CODER SELECTION DISCUSSION

The discussions on coder selection took most of the time of the meeting. The characteristics of the two coders werecompared with the requirements detailed in the Terms of Reference for the work. In general, this discussion con-cluded that both coders met the requirements with the exception of the following areas of concern and disagreement:

• Performance in the presence of babble noise

The results from NTT (DSVD-95-39 from the September meeting) indicated that both coders failed the babblenoise test. Although a further analysis by COMSAT (DSVD-95-43) showed that an alternative processing ofthe results concluded that the DSP Group coder passed, there was some concern that the test procedures andanalysis were not in accordance with SG 12 SQEG standard practice. In any event, the results showed that theperformance of two coders was very similar on this test, the COMSAT report indicating that they werestatistically equivalent.



• Talker dependency

The test report form COMSAT (DSVD-95-42 from the September meeting) indicated that all the codersshowed some degree of talker dependency, but concluded that further testing was required as the particular test didnot involve a sufficiently large number of talkers. While the results were not conclusive, the COMSAT reportdid indicate that the University of Sherbrooke coder was the least sensitive, i.e., the only coder to pass a two wayanalysis of variance assessment for all the talkers used.

• Coder complexity

The Audio Codes/DSP Group coder clearly met all of these requirements. The University of Sherbrooke coderappeared to fail this requirement, however considerable evidence was presented to show that the use of analternative DSP to that used by the University of Sherbrooke in their simulation, would result in compliancewith the MIPS requirement. The expectation of the University of Sherbrooke was that an improvement wouldalso be made on the ROM requirement.

The meeting also considered topics such as the possible benefit of interworking with G.729, and the possibility ofsharing DSP code with implementations of dual coders. Some felt, however, that as these issues were not in theTerms of Reference, they should not be considered. It was not possible to reach an agreement on either coder.

During these discussions, some delegates expressed concern that the Experts Group was now trying to conclude workon a standard which closely matched the characteristics of other coders currently in progress in the ITU, namelyG.729. This resulted from the decision of the Experts Group at the March meeting to deviate from the original SG15 mandate to develop a coder at 13 kbit/s. In March, the Group had decided to aim for the lowest possible bit rate,which, while being in accord with the wishes of SG 14, had not been approved by SG 15. Also, there were factorsemerging in discussion which had not been defined in the original Terms of Reference, e.g., interworking or codesharing with other coders.

In the absence of an agreement on a coder selection, the meeting agreed to refer the issues to the forthcoming SG 15meeting such that the revision to the Terms of Reference, and the importance of the newly discussed factors, could bediscussed by the wider committee.

REVIEW OF DRAFT RECOMMENDATION

The proponents of the two coders introduced contributions giving detailed information on their respective coders inthe form of draft Recommendations. These were DSVD-95-58 for Audio Codes/DSP Group, and DSVD-95-65for the University of Sherbrooke. As most of the time of the meeting had been taken up with the selectiondiscussion, these documents were not reviewed in detail.

VOICE ACTIVITY DETECTOR

There were two contributions on Voice Activity Detector. DSVD-95-51 (France Telecom/ CNET) describes acomfort noise generator for the dual rate G.723 speech coder. This paper had been presented the previous week at theLBC meeting in Darmstadt (LBC-95-329), and the proposal was accepted for incorporation into draft Annex A ofG.723. France Telecom had indicated that a variant could be designed for G.dsvd. The technique involves thetransmission of a Silence Insertion Descriptor (SID) frame instead of a speech frame during periods of no voiceactivity. The SID is shorter than an active speech frame, and contains information on the characteristics of thebackground noise. These SID frames are not sent continuously during silence, but only when the noise characteristicchanges.

DSVD-95-61 (Rockwell) reports that they had tested their VAD design with the G.729 speech coder and verifiedthat the performance was as good as for their own coder, as reported in DSVD-95-33 from the September meeting.

The meeting did not have time to discuss these proposals in detail, and this topic was left for discussion at the SG15 meeting in November (see SG 15 meeting report, this issue of CSR-T). Rockwell indicated that they may haveadditional test results available by that time.

REPORT FOR SG 15

DSVD-95-71 is the outline for the report to the SG 15 meeting, and contains a summary of the selectiondiscussions, noting that no decision had been reached, and that SG 15 approval to the change to the bit rate re-quirement was required. The wording of these parts of the report were amended by the meeting, and additional



background information was added after the meeting. Author’s note: The final version of the report is TD.18(Gen) from the November SG 15 meeting.

John Magill, Probe Communications, UK

G.DSVD EXPERTS MEETING ROSTER, OCTOBER 23 – 25, 1995, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

John Magill, Probe Communications, UK Chair of Experts Group

AT&T (USA) Dror NahumiAT&T (USA) Mike BuckleyAudio Codes Ltd. (Israel) Leon BialikAudio Codes Ltd. (Israel) Felix FlomenDeutsche Telekom (Germany) Gerhard SchroederDSP Group Inc. (Israel) Yair Be’eryDSP Group Inc. (Israel) Yuval CohenIBM (USA) Ali SadriIntel Corporation (USA) Mike KeithMotorola ISG (USA) Art BarabellNTT (Japan) Shinji HayashiPCSI (UK) Harprit ChhatwalRockwell Int’l (USA) Huan-yu SuRockwell Int’l (USA) Jim JohnstonSiemens (Germany) Marcus TerschluseSiemens (Germany) Istvan SebestyenSipro Lab Telecom (Canada) Laurent AmarU. of Sherbrooke (Canada) Claude Laflamme



REPORT OF TR-30, DATA TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENTNOVEMBER 13 – 17, 1995, ORLANDO, FL

TR-30.1 MODEMS

Technical editor’s note: The following files have been placed by L. Brown (V.8bis Rapporteur) on his ftp site:[email protected] directory /vendors/Motorola_ISG/. These files are the same as those sent to the ITU-T as finaldocuments, as of 12/14/95.

• V.8bis rev 8• Annex A/V.25ter (V.8/V.8bis DCE control)• V.ib rev 6 (in-band control)• V.dsvd-s (system doc.)• V.dsvd-c (control doc.)• V.gmux (dsvd multiplexer)

TR-30.1/95-11-142 (D. Brandt, TR-30 Chair, AT&T) is a summary of the WP 1/14 October meeting (see CSR-T Vol. 6 #7 for a full report of this meeting).

TR-30.1/95-11-151 (D. Brandt, AT&T) contains the highlights of the recent meeting of the TIA TechnicalCommittee. A new Satellite Division will reactivate TR-34. The TIA Engineering Manual will be delayed untilmid 1996 as it must be reballoted due to changes. D. Brandt also noted a recent decision in ISO/IEC JTC1 to list allknown patents in their standards.

V.D S V D-S , DSVD SYSTEMS DOCUMENT

TR-30.1/95-11-138 is the latest version of draft Recommendation V.dsvd-s as presented at the October WP 1/14meeting, as TD-50rev (J. Magill, V.dsvd-s Editor, AT&T). C. Hansen (Intel) gave a comprehensive review of thedocument, noting the requirement for V.8bis. During the discussion that followed, the relationship with H.245 wasdiscussed. H.324 utilizes H.245 as the control channel. V.dsvd-s utilizes the control and indications PDUs ofH.245 which provides a common encoding and syntax. It was noted, however, that H.245 is a moving target.

V.D S V D-C, DSVD CONTROL DOCUMENT

TR-30.1/95-11-137© (C. Hansen, Intel) is the latest version of draft Recommendation V.dsvd-c, dated November 10,1995. C. Hansen pointed out that as dsvd-c is directly linked with H.245, it cannot be approved until H.245 isstable (see SG 15 WP1 report in this issue of CSR-T for the latest changes to H.245). It describes how the selectedsubset of H.245 messages are used to control a point-to-point DSVD connection.

The question was raised as to how H.245 would be updated as time went on, and it was reported that no procedureshad been established. This is a weakness in a system which relies on V.gmux to map the logical channels indepen-dent of the DTEs (Data Terminal Equipment). The example used to highlight the problem was: How would theDTE know which channel contained the left channel information versus the right when a stereo connection wasrequested?

TR-30.1/95-11-143 (C. Hansen, Intel) provides two ladder diagrams of an example connection based on thepresent text of dsvd-c. The presentation was long, with considerable questions of clarity being answered during itscourse. Diagram 1 shows a DSVD communications stack.

SCF DATA AUDIO

V.34

V.gmux

DSVD-C/H.245

SCF = supervisory and control functionDiagram 1. DSVD communications stack



V.GMUX, DSVD MULIPLEXER

TR-30.1/95-11-144 (J.H. Derby, IBM) proposes the polynomial to be used for the optional 8-bit CRC (CyclicRedundancy Code) in draft Recommendation V.gmux. It is the same 8-bit polynomial that is presently specified indraft Recommendation H.223; therefore, it was not formally introduced. It was decided to forward the contributionto the late November Rapporteurs meeting as a TR-30 contribution.

V.8BIS

TR-30.1/95-11-140 (LBC Rapporteur) is a liaison from Q2/15 to the SG 14 V.8bis Rapporteur regarding V.8bisH.324 coding. This liaison proposes the expansion of V.8bis capabilities to allow for sub-fields building a treestructure. Two octets for H.324 are proposed with expansion octets supported.

TR-30.1/95-11-152 (R. Schaphorst, Q2/15 Rapporteur, Delta Information Systems) supports TR-30.1/95-11-140 reproducing an earlier liaison from SG 15 (June 1995) describing a proposed a tree-structure in V.8bis.

TR-30.1/95-11-139 (L. Brown, Motorola) proposes a way to implement an extra level in the tree structure inV.8bis in a more unified way. It includes changes to the V.8bis rev 7 tables that would be needed to comply withthis unified coding method. Changes to the V.8bis text (TR-30.1/95-11-139add) were also developed at thismeeting.

There was considerable discussion about the need to change to a tree structure, as requested by SG 15; this led to adiscussion of how much data should be exchanged in the V.8bis mode. It appeared that all of the presently definedrequirements could be accommodated with the existing flat structure, but SG 15 appeared to be intent on buildingsomething more expandable. In the end, the problem seemed to be more with the “generalizing” approach, asproposed in TR-30.1/95-11-139 and TR-30.1/95-11-139add, than in just minimally complying with SG 15. Itwas finally decided that it would be more appropriate to have the V.8bis Rapporteur send a liaison to SG 15indicating our reluctance to change the text of V.8bis at this late stage.

TR-30.1/95-11-145 (K. Ko, AT&T) proposes changes to the text describing the number of HDLC (High LevelData Link Control) flags required. It would allow the use of standard HDLC controller chips. It was decided thatthis proposal could be supported as a TR-30 contribution if it were modified to eliminate the upper bound on thenumber of flags (i.e., by removing the “but not more than …” statements). This was documented in TR-30.1/95-11-156 .

TR-30.1/95-11-146 (A. Sadri, IBM) proposes a method for selectively requesting an ACK (acknowledgment) toan MS message. It simplifies the detection of ACK, NAK, ANS or ANSam as it is possible that either ANS orANSam could falsely trigger the FSK receiver. After considerable discussion, it was decided that there was notsufficient support to make this a TR-30 proposal.

TR-30.1/95-11-147 (A. Sadri, IBM) proposes that the duration of ANS (Answer Tone) and ANSam (AnswerTone, amplitude modulated) be made the same (5 secs). This was proposed on the basis that it would allow foreasier implementation of detectors in software based systems. After some discussion, it was decided that there wasnot sufficient support for a unified duration of ANS and ANSam to make it a TR-30 contribution. However, asecond point suggesting the removal of the requirement for the 75 ms silent period between the ACK andANS/ANSam was supported, and a new contribution making this one point was drafted (TR-30.1/95-11-154).

In the closing discussions, it was also decided to have L. Brown draft a contribution to the Late NovemberRapporteurs meeting stating that TR-30 does not support the consideration of other modulation modes for V.8bis atthis time.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

TR-30.1/95-11-148 (R. Schaphorst, Q2/15 Low Bitrate Coding Rapporteur) is a liaison from Q2/15encouraging the work on V.dispatch. It states that, in the interim, they will retain the V.dsvd PDUs (Protocol DataUnits) in draft Recommendation H.245.

TR-30.1/95-11-153 (F. Burg, Draft Rec. V.gmux Editor) is the final version of draft Recommendation V.gmux,Generic Multiplexer using V.42 LAPM-based Procedures, dated October 1995.

TR-30.1/95-11-149 (R. Schaphorst, Q2/15 GSTN Videophone Rapporteur) is a liaison from Q2/15 calling SG14’s attention to the fact that Recommendation V.54 does not presently accommodate an asymmetric LOOP 2.



L. Staples (Data Race) once again raised the issue of the need to associate a particular logical channel with a specificphysical entity at the far-end. It was confirmed that, as presently defined, H.245 does not accommodate this re-quirement. Considerable discussion led to a decision to generate a proposed liaison, contained in TR-30.1/95-11-155 , which would request J. Magill (Q1/14 DSVD Rapporteur) to address this issue at the SG 15 meeting whichwas presently in session in Geneva.

Dick Brandt, dB Consulting

TR-30.2, DATA TRANSMISSION

ITU-T STUDY GROUP 14

D. Brandt, TR-30 Chair, provided an overview of the work which took place at the ITU-T Study Group 14 WorkingParty 1 meeting in Munich Germany during October (TR-30.2/95-011-033). The specific areas which relate tothe work of TR- 30.2 were reviewed. Three documents from the Munich meeting were distributed:• TR-30.2/95-11-030 : Report on the Q.6/14 Meeting Held on 10 October 1995 (TD-56)• TR-30.2/95-11-031 : Summary of Agreed Revisions to Existing and Approval of New, DTE-DCE Interface

Related V. series Recommendations (TD-39rev2)• TR-30.2/95-11-032 : Proposed Draft Recommendation on Flow Control (D.153 )The changes which had been proposed to Recommendation V.24 for the elimination of Circuits 102a and 102b werenot accepted; however, the note in that section of V.24 has been modified to indicated that in certain applicationsthey may not be needed. The draft Recommendation on Flow Control is a compilation of the various standardmethods which may be used to implement Flow Control between a DTE and DCE. This document is much morelike a Technical Bulletin than a Recommendation.

PN-3138, DTE/DCE INTERFACE FOR DIGITAL CELLULAR

Work on PN-3138, DTE/DCE Interface for Digital Cellular Equipment, has basically been completed. Draft 4 of thestandard (TR-30.2/94-04-013R3) was reviewed by TR-30.2. This draft had also been reviewed at the TR-45.3.2meeting earlier in the week. The results of that review (TR-30.2/95-11-034) were presented to TR-30.2 by A.Sacuta, TR-45.3.2 Chair. The majority of the comments from TR-45.3.2 were of an editorial nature. Onecomment, which at first appeared editorial, to increase the maximum data rate for the interface to 128 kbit/s, soondeveloped into a new work project. The draft for PN-3138 had been referencing EIA/TIA-562 as the electricalcharacteristics. EIA/TIA-562 includes a maximum data rate of 64 kbit/s, therefore eliminating it from considerationfor the new requirement of 128 kbit/s. The resulting discussion indicated a need for a new electrical characteristicstandard which would provide interoperability with EIA/TIA-562 as well as EIA/TIA-232. It would, in fact, be amodern day 232-type of electrical characteristic. J. Goldie (National Semiconductor), TR- 30.2.1 ad hoc chairman,indicated that the ad hoc committee has been considering just such an interface for some time and would provide afirst draft for such a standard at the February 1996 meeting. Progressing of PN-3138 to ANSI industry ballot will beheld up until work is also completed on the new electrical characteristic. G. Lawrence (AMP Inc.) provided the finaldrawings (TR-30.2/95-11-035) for the connector specified in the standard. These drawings, as well as thecomments from TR-45.3.2, will be included in the next draft of PN-3138. Hopefully, work will progress on thenew electrical characteristic standard to permit both to be approved for ballot at the February meeting.

VERY HIGH SPEED INTERFACE, ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS

TIA/EIA-644, “Electrical Characteristics of Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS) Interface Circuits,” has beenforwarded to TIA for publication. It should become available from Global Engineering Documents in severalmonths.

ASYNCHRONOUS AND SYNCHRONOUS SIGNAL QUALITY

TR-30.2 has been awaiting contributions on an open project which was to combine the DTE/DCE signal qualitystandards TIA/EIA-334 and TIA/EIA-404 for almost two years. In addition, the editor for this work has had towithdraw from the task due to a change in his job assignment. At this meeting, TR-30.2 agreed to terminate workon this project. It was felt that whatever advantages which could have been seen in this work are probably long lostand that the existing two standards would serve the community sufficiently.



DTE/DCE INTERFACE FOR DATA RATES UP TO 116 KBIT/S

Work on this new interface remains on hold awaiting a contribution from J. Moran, Motorola ISG, which has beenpromised for the February 1996 meeting. This work is to be a final recommendation regarding the connection ofsignal common and frame ground. It was determined that, since this standard has been nearly complete for manymonths, with only this final recommendation to be included, the standard would be approved for ballot in Februarywith or without the grounding recommendation.

REVISION OF EIA-485

The TR-30.2 ad hoc committee reported that they are continuing work on the revision of EIA-485, “Standard forElectrical Characteristics of Generators and Receivers for Use in Balanced Digital Multipoint Systems.” As part ofthis effort, a new Telecommunications Systems Bulletin (TSB) will be written which will incorporate the existingapplication information from EIA-485 as well as new/additional application guidance. It is expected that this workwill be completed by late 1996.

WITHDRAWAL OF RS-366

F. Lucas, TR-30.2 chair, reported that the TIA ballot to withdraw RS-366 had passed. This compliments the workin ITU-T Study Group 14 which is revising Recommendation V.25 to remove the parallel dialing capability.

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BU S

A short discussion regarding the possibility of standardization of all or a portion of the Universal Serial Bus tookplace. This work is well along within a consortium of companies interested in the work. TR-30.2 would only beinvolved with a small portion of the interface. It was concluded that it would not be of interest to TR-30.2 toundertake this work at this time, especially considering its near-completion state within the consortium.

Fred A. Lucas

TR-30.3 DATA COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT EVALUATION AND NETWORK INTERFACES

J. Douglass (Sierra Semiconductor) suggested that a project be opened to create a standard for testing Low Bit RateMultimedia Devices. TR-30.3 concurred.

R. Breden (TIA) said that in the future, TIA will be using electronic correspondence for distribution of things such asmeeting notices. TIA will also be setting up a BBS, a World Wide Web page and internet access for downloadingstandards.

LIAISON REPORTS

FCC LiaisonThe FCC Billboard for October, 1995 (TR-30.1/95-11-081) was distributed for information. R. Breden (TIA)reported that TIA will be sponsoring an FCC Part 68 seminar and meeting on March 28 and 29, 1996.

SG 14 Lia isonTR-30.1/95-11-082 (D. Brandt, AT&T), is a summary of October Working Party 1/14 meeting in Germany. D.Brandt reported that the US Proposal for modem testing V.mt (TIA TSB-38 Test Procedures for Evaluating 2 wire 4Kilohertz Voiceband Duplex Modems) was accepted for Resolution 1 treatment. When it becomes aRecommendation it may be called something other than V.56ter.

PN-3459 -- M AKING TSB-37-A (TELEPHONE NETWORK TRANSMISSION MODEL FOR EVALUATINGMODEM PERFORMANCE) INTO AN ANSI S TANDARD.

TR-30.1/95-11-083 , Listener Echo Performance, was presented by R. Perez (Bellcore) and B. McNamara (BellSouth Communications). They presented data regarding the distribution of values of Signal to Listener Echo Ratio(SLER) on intra-office calls and the effect of SLER on V.34 modem performance. This study found that interofficecalls have a mean value of 27 dB for SLER, while TSB-37-A has a worse case SLER of 36 dB. They alsomentioned that loop loss of 3 dB is more typical than the 6 dB loss reflected in line 17A of TSB-37-A. Theyconcluded that listener echo affects modem performance and that TSB-37-A should reflect real world values of SLER.After reviewing the information, TR-30.3 decided that a new line with a higher values of SLER may need to be added



to TSB-37-A. However, J. Moran (Motorola) and L. Smith (AT&T) should review the findings and make arecommendation.

During the ad hoc meeting, J. Moran (Motorola) faxed a response (TR-30.1/95-11-087AH) to Bellcore’s report,Listener Echo Considerations. In the response, J. Moran points out that TR-30.3 was aware that echoes in factcould be as poor as 10 dB, but the round trip delay was typically less than 5 ms. This simply means that if thelistener echo is close enough, the modem’s receiver equalizer will take the listener echo. Basically it was felt thatwhen the round trip delay became significant or greater than 5 ms, the Switch would have to deal with the problemanyway, as customers would start complaining about echo problems.

It was pointed out that the minimum telephone line simulator delays are in the neighborhood of 12 ms, rather thanthe 5 ms network delay. Since the test results presented in the Bellcore report were run on a telephone linesimulator, they may not be representative listener echo characteristics of a real telephone line. In fact, the problemsthat Bellcore is reporting may not be caused by listener echo, since most modem equalizers can span listener echoesthat are less than 5 ms.

However, the problems that Bellcore is experiencing may be caused by the 3 dB loops or talker echo problemsresulting from echo canceller distortion. B. McNamara (Bell South Communications) said that they would continueto investigate the problem and report their findings to TR-30.3.

PN-3509 -- M AKING TSB-38 (TEST PROCEDURES FOR EVALUATING 2 WIRE 4 K ILOHERTZVOICEBAND DUPLEX MODEMS) INTO AN ANSI S TANDARD.

The following documents were distributed and reviewed:• TR-30.1/95-11-085 , Letter ballot for PN-3509. The ballot will be officially distributed by TIA. The

comment period will expire on December 15, 1995.• TR-30.1/95-11-084 , Connect Reliability Graphs for V.34 modems, shows an alternative way of presenting

Connect Reliability test results. TR-30.3 felt the graphs were informative and should be included in the nextrevision of TSB-38 along with a modified test procedure. However, these graphs should be plotted for both theinitial and final connect rates.

PN-3251 -- C ELLULAR NETWORK TRANSMISSION MODEL FOR EVALUATING MODEMPERFORMANCE

The following documents were distributed and reviewed:• TR-30.1/95-11-079 , Draft 4 of PN-3251 (Cellular Network Transmission Model for Evaluating Modem

Performance).• TR-30.1/95-11-086 , Cellular Network Transmission Testing for Evaluating modem performance (W.

Henderson, Henderson Communications).

After TR-30.3 reviewed and edited PN-3251 draft 4 section by section, the following homework assignments weretaken:• M. Pellegrini (TAS) agreed to incorporate TR-30.3’s recommendations in draft 5, which will be distributed at the

February meeting.• B. Scott (AT&T) agreed to bring a contribution on MTSO (Mobile Telephone Switching Office, i.e., cellular

switching site) modems.• D. Rife (Hayes) will write a definition for ADPCM.• W. Henderson (Henderson Communications) agreed to provide definitions for the definition section.• M. Pellegrini (TAS) and B. Smith (Bell Mobility) agreed to look at Table 1.• M. Pellegrini (TAS) and D. Ginex (AT&T Paradyne) agreed to run throughput tests using 17C, 18C, 19C, etc.

with all the loops and some RF Channels.• B. Smith (Bell Mobility) agreed to run tests to characterize a cell site.

PN-3507 -- T EST PROCEDURE FOR EVALUATION OF CELLULAR MODEMS PERFORMANCE

W. Park (US Robotics) volunteered to be editor for PN-3507.

TR-30.1/95-11-088AH , An outline for Cellular Modem Testing Procedures (PN-3507), was generated during thead hoc meeting. B. Anders (US Robotics) and D. Ginex (AT&T Paradyne) agreed to add text to a number ofsections.



TEST PROCEDURE FOR EVALUATION OF LOW BIT RATE MULTIMEDIA DEVICES

TR-30.1/95-11-089AH , An outline for Test Procedure for Testing Low Bit Rate Multimedia Devices, wasgenerated during the ad hoc meeting. After some discussion, the ad hoc committee decided the following:• The scope of the project should be limited to voice and data testing.• Areas that should be tested include: speech delay, speech quality, multitone signal for testing audio channel

quality, effect of speech on data performance, data through-put with and without speech, turning speech on andoff, data turning on and off (while in speech mode), effect of retrains on voice, and effect of line impairments onspeech and data quality.

• Investigate existing DSVD test equipment.• Investigate Mean Opinion Score (MOS).• Contact SG 15 about existing test procedures.• Invite ZD labs to the next meeting.• Invite Analogic to the next meeting. They make a DSVD test box.

Jack Douglass, Sierra Semiconductor

TR-30.4 DTE-DCE PROTOCOLS

B. O’Mahony (Intel) served as chair in the absence of TR-30.4 chair J. Bain (Motorola).

LIAISON

J. Decuir distributed TR-30.4/95-11-113©, a phase 2 draft of ETSI GSM 7.07, AT command set for GSM MobileEquipment (ME). It was presented for information, with comments invited. Comments should be directed to theeditor: [email protected].

J. Decuir noted that Nokia had submitted a paper to the WP 1/14 Munich meeting on dial string modifiers (D.142 )which had drawn objection over the choice of characters. Subsequent correspondence with B. Pechey (Hayes, UK)had resulted in an agreement avoiding collisions.

PN-2989, EXTENSIONS TO ASYNCHRONOUS SERIAL AUTOMATIC DIALING AND CONTROL

TR-30.4 had sent out PN-2989 for a second time, including three sets of functions:

• V.8 DCE Control (Annex A/V.25ter)• Test Commands (Annex X)• Other commands (Annex Y)

The ballot comment period closed November 11, 1995. Ballots sent to the chair were not available. Three ballotswere brought in by members:

• TR-30.4/95-11-109 (J. Decuir, Microsoft): Microsoft voted NO on the V.8 control part, since the materialhas been extended by ITU Q5/8 and Q7/14 (see TR-30.4/95-11-110 and TR-30.4/95-11-111 , in theV.25ter Annex A discussion, below).

• TR-30.4/95-11-105 (B. O’Mahony): Intel voted NO on the V.8 control part, for the same reasons. Thisballot also objected to two commands in Annex Y: +ACID (Caller ID) and +ADDR (Distinctive Ringing), onthe grounds that they are redundant with the +VCID and +VDR commands from TIA IS-101 and PN-3131.

• TR-30.4/95-11-114 (D. Rife, Hayes): Hayes voted yes, but noted that new cadences are being defined in the UKand elsewhere. The ballot proposes a new table to add to this section. In discussion, it was noted that ANSI hasjust published T1.104.02 on Distinctive Ringing.

PN-3319, SAVD DCE-DTE INTERFACES

The editor, B. O’Mahony (Intel), presented TD-59r1 (TR-30.4/95-11-108), from the Munich WP 1/14meeting. It was reported that this was determined for Resolution 1 decision in March, and that WP 1/14 had agreedto make Synchronous Data modems an Annex A of V.ib instead Annex B of V.25ter.

During this meeting, some small technical changes were made. The escape character was changed from <DLE> to<EM>. The <hd_auto> subparameter was added to support V.34 half-duplex fax. Several codes were added for



transparency of DC1 and DC3 characters. The numerous data rate codes were collapsed into a four octet:<em><rate><tx><rx> sequence.

No action was taken.

PN-3131, VOICE DCE CONTROL

The new editor, L. Staples (Datarace) presented his first draft, TR-30.4/95-11-104 , PN-3131 R4. The editorincorporated two significant new features and SVD control:

• Duplex speakerphone• Add G.dsvd voice compression• SVD control: event detection and reporting

The speakerphone material is in section 10.5. The new SVD material is concentrated in sections 4.8, 5.1.3, 6.5, 7.3and 8.3.

It was suggested and agreed to add G.711, G.723 and G.729 to the audio codec list.

It was noted and agreed that both of these features are being included in market products, and that standards are neededhere. It was noted that speakerphone functions have been requested since mid-1994. In discussion, it was agreed todelete the DSVD control material, since it is directly within the scope PN-3319, Voice/Data Multiplexing the DCEs– DTE-DCE Interface Operations.

The editor examined the history of the project and prepared a list of recommended changes, presented in TR-30.4/95-11-106 . They include:

• Delete voice translation state - this belongs in the DTE, and nobody uses it now• Stop using event masks• Stop defining service levels

J. Decuir noted that GSM 7.07, which references IS-101 in Annex C, does not reference the voice translation feature.It was agreed to drop voice translation mode.

V.25TER ANNEX A

The editor, J. Decuir, attended several standards meetings since the previous TR-30.4 meeting, and reported on themin TR-30.4/95-11-110 . The substance was that ITU Q5/8, ITU Q7/14 and TIA TR-29.2 had all been involvedin the content and in the overlap between draft V.25ter Annex A and draft Annex C/T.31. It is the current TR-29position that SG 8 should abandon draft Annex C/T.31 in favor of draft Annex A/V.25ter.

Draft Annex A/V.25ter has been determined for Resolution 1 decision in March 1995, but the work is not done. AtWP 1/14, material was drafted and added to support V.8bis negotiation controlled by the DTE; it was presented inTR-30.4/95-11-111 (same as WP 1/14 document TD-83). This work is immature, and judged to need attentionat TR-30.4 and at the upcoming Q7/14 Rapporteur’s group meeting (November 27-30).

B. O’Mahony (Intel) prepared a thorough critique of TD-83 (New Annex A/V.25ter) in TR-30.4/95-11-107 . Itcontains 35 items, and was presented and discussed in great detail. Agreements were reached on several items. Theeditor prepared a new version, TR-30.4/95-11-111R1 , embodying many of these agreements. Other items werenot resolved, and were listed as open issues.

No consensus was reached on some of the proposed changes, so this did not result in a TR-30.4 position. Theeditor will capture what he can, and make a contribution to the Q7/14 Rapporteur’s group meeting (November 27-30).

OTHER BUSINESS : USB COMM DEVICE SPECIFICATION

TR-30.4/95-11-112 , Snapshot of Universal Serial Bus Communications Device Class Specification, wasdistributed for information and comment. Comment should be directed to J. Decuir, [email protected]. It wasnot discussed due to lack of time.

Joe Decuir, Microsoft



TR-30 MEETING ROSTER, NOVEMBER 13 – 17, 1995, ORLANDO, FL

Dick Brandt, dB Consulting Chair, TR-30Les Brown, Motorola ISG Chair, TR-30.1Fred Lucas, General Datacomm Chair, TR-30.2Jack Douglass, Sierra Semiconductor Chair, TR-30.3Jay Bain, UDS-Motorola Chair, TR-30.4

3Com John Rosenlof3Com Richard WilliamsAMP George LawrenceAT&T Bahman BarazeshAT&T Dick BrandtAT&T Ken KoAT&T Ed ZuranskiAT&T Consumer Prod. Don McClarrenAT&T Paradyne Domenick GinexAT&T Paradyne Bill GirtoaAT&T Paradyne Bob ScottAT&T Paradyne R.K. SmithBell Mobility Cellular Brian SmithBell South Cellular Megan KlenzaleBell South Telecom. Bill McNamaraBellcore Ricardo PerezCompaq Computers Edward NewmanConsultronics Jocelyn DoireDatarace Les StaplesDEC Remi LiseeDigi International Ham MathewsEricsson Al SacutaGeneral DataComm Emil GhelbergGeneral DataComm Yuri GoldstienHayes Dave RifeHenderson Coms. Labs Warren HendersonIBM Ali SadriIntel Chris HansonIntel Barry O’MahonyMicrosoft Joe DecuirMulti-Tech R.S. GopalanNational Semi. John GoldiePenril Datacom Dick StuartRacal Datacomm Veda KrishnenRockwell Glen GriffithRockwell Joe HoangRockwell Ramin NobakhtRSA/Cirrus Logic Michael ApadulaRSA/Cirrus Logic Karl NordlingSony Andy DaoTAS Mike PellegriniTelebit Ken JonesTexas Instruments Kevin GingerichTIA Roberta BredenUS Robotics Bryan AndersUS Robotics Jonathan HallUS Robotics Andy NorellUS Robotics Valimir ParizhskyUS Robotics/Meghertz Wayne Park



REPORT OF SG 15 TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS:WP 1, AUDIOVISUAL/MULTIMEDIA

WP 2, VOICE PROCESSING AND OPERATION FUNCTIONNOVEMBER 14 – 22, 1995, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

Temporary document references include TD## for those of either Working Party 1 or 2, TD##(P) for those of StudyGroup 15 plenary, and TD##(G) for those shared between WP 1 and WP 2.

A joint meeting of WP 1 and WP 2 took place in which harmonization of protocol activities between the two WPs,future structure of AVMMS (AudioVisual and MultiMedia Services) studies, and G.723 related issues were discussed.

GLOBAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (GII)

The TSAG decided in September 1995 to set up a Task Force to work on GII (Global Information Infrastructure)under the leadership of SG 13. A joint meeting of this Task force will be held in Geneva February 17-19, 1996.TD-20 (P) includes an initial document from SG 13 which suggests an approach to GII standardization, delineatesa work plan across the Study Groups, and makes suggestions for a framework for the GII.

M IGRATION TO FPLMTS/IMT-2000

TD-38 is the draft report on the evolution to FPLMTS/IMT-2000 from ITU-R Task Group 8/1. It containsconsiderable detail on direction and existing wireless systems in use world-wide.

SG 15 WP 1, AUDIOVISUAL/MULTIMEDIA

The official WP 1 meeting report is contained in TD-65(P) , and all outgoing liaison statements (LS) are containedin TD-67(P) .

The following WP 1 draft Recommendations were decided by SG 15. If reservations are removed, they will all gointo postal ballot with approvals expected in about 5 months.

NEW WP 1/15 RECOMMENDATIONS RELEVANT TO PSTN, B-ISDN, AND LAN MULTIMEDIA

• H.324 Terminal for low bit-rate multimedia communication (6-week reservation by the US) - COM-15-162 andTD-44(P)

• H.223 Multiplexing protocol for low bit-rate multimedia communication (6-week reservation by the USA) -COM-15-164 and TD-45(P)

• G.723.1 (previously G.723 but changed at this meeting to avoid confusion with an obsolete speech codingRecommendation) Dual rate speech coder for multimedia communications transmitting at 5.3 and 6.3 kbit/s -COM-15-153 and TD-28(P)

• H.263 Video coding for low bit-rate multimedia communication - COM-15-159 and TD-29(P)• H.245 Control protocol for multimedia communication (6-week reservation by the USA) - COM-15-155 and

TD-58(P)• H.321 Adaptation of H.320 visual telephone terminals to B-ISDN environments - COM-15-157 and TD-49(P)• H.322 (ISO/IEC 13818-1) Visual telephone systems and terminal equipment for local area networks which

provide a guaranteed quality of service - COM-15-158 and TD-17(P)• H.222.1 Multimedia multiplex and synchronization for audiovisual communication in ATM environments -

COM-15-156 and TD-47(P)

REVISED WP 1/15 RECOMMENDATIONS RELEVANT TO N-ISDN MULTIMEDIA

• H.320 Narrowband visual telephone systems and terminal equipment - COM-15-151 and TD-48(P)• H.231 Multipoint control units for audiovisual systems using digital channels up to 1920 kbit/s - COM-15-160

and TD-3(P)• H.242 System for establishing communication between audiovisual terminals using digital channels up to 2

Mbit/s - COM-15-154 and TD-30(P)• H.243 Procedures for establishing communication between three or more audiovisual terminals using digital

channels up to 1920 kbit/s - COM-15-161 and TD-75(P)



WP 1/15 DETERMINED DRFATS

The following draft Recommendations were Determined, will be edited further, and will come up for decision at theMay 1996 meeting of SG 15:• H.310 Broadband audiovisual communication systems and terminals - TD-46(P)• H.225 (was H.22Z) Media stream packetization and synchronization for visual telephone systems on non-

guaranteed quality-of-service LANs - TD-76(P)• H.323 Visual telephone systems and equipment for local area networks which provide non-guaranteed quality of

service - TD-77(P)• H.222.0 (Amendments) Systems aspects for moving pictures (= MPEG-2) - TD-72(P)• H.262 (Amendments) Generic coding of moving pictures (= MPEG-2) - TD-71(P)• G.723.1 (silence compression[Annex A], floating point[Annex B] and enhancement of G.723.1 for

mobile/PSTN) - TD-14(G), TD-15(G), and TD-16(G) respectively

LBC GROUP WORK AND FINALIZATION OF PSTN MULTIMEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS

The report of the LBC experts group was presented by R. Schaphorst (Rapporteur for Very Low Bit Rate VisualTelephony) in TD-35 (see reort in this isue of CRT-T). All that is needed to make a PSTN videophone, or avoice+data terminal, was ready for adoption (H.324, H.223, H.245, G.723.1, and H.263). On the mobile PSTNfront, work was progressing well: an annex for G.723.1 dealing with error control was put up for determination,(TD-16(G)), although WP 1/15 reserved the right not to use this annex unless the system eventually adopted callsfor this particular solution.

H.324 was presented by the Editor, D. Lindbergh (PictureTel). The input version was COM-15-162. TD-28©contains a version in which the essential session-selection protocol V.8bis and reception of silence frames are ex-plicitly mandatory. After some discussion as to the best way to cope with the fact that V.8bis has not yet beenfinalized in SG 14, it was decided to let V.8bis remain an option on the basis that, once it is stable, everyimplementer would probably include it. A few minor changes were made; all changes are noted in TD-44(P) . TD-69© is the complete final draft dated 11/20/95. H.324 was decided, but with a 6-week reservation by the US on IPRgrounds (see H.223 below).

H.223 was presented by the Editor, V. Eyuboglu (Motorola). A few minor changes were made, which are listed inTD-45(P) . H.223 was decided, but with a 6-week reservation by the US on IPR grounds. In this regard, BTdeclared its patents not to be essential to H.223, but they are willing to review any written technical case to thecontrary.

H.263 was presented by the Editor, K. Rijkse (KPN). TD-52 (BT Labs) is a tutorial discussion of HRDs(Hypothetical Reference Decoder) and the need to make change to the existing H.263 HRD; this was supported.Other smaller refinements are listed in TD-29(P) . H.263 was decided.

G.723.1 (slight change of number to avoid confusion with a previous but now obsolete Recommendation) waspresented by the Editor, R. Cox (AT&T). A few minor corrections were made and noted in TD-28(P) . G.723.1was decided.

Recent revisions to H.245 were presented in TD-15(P) by M. Nilsson (BT), one of the editors. At the request ofthe February 1995 meeting of WP 1/15, the previously separate control protocols for B-ISDN (H.245) and PSTN(H.246) multimedia had been harmonized into a single document, and the protocol was expected to achieve evenwider applicability by adoption for LAN multimedia systems (H.323) and V.dsvd. Many delegates complimentedthe experts groups and particularly the two editors (M. Nilsson and B. Welsh, BT) for this achievement. The extraediting and refinement caused by the H.245/H.246 merging had resulted in a large number of changes appearing inthe document presented. SG 15 was sympathetic to this, and H.245 was decided, albeit with a 6-week reservation bythe US on grounds of the need to study the late changes. A proposal in D.624 (J.-P. Blin, France Telecom)concerning mode preference source identification was considered a useful input for future enhancement of H.245 formultipoint working.

AVC GROUP WORK AND FINALIZATION OFB-ISDN AND LAN MULTIMEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS

The report of the AVC (Audiovisual Conferencing) group was presented by S. Okubo (Rapporteur for Q2/15,Videoconferencing and Videophone) in TD-37 . TD-36, the H.310 hardware trial notes that the core part of draftH.310 has been verified by hardware experiments in Japan.



Enhancements to cope with H.323 requirements were incorporated into H.245. H.245 applies to B-ISDN and LANmultimedia systems as well as to PSTN systems. TD-38 from the Q2/15 proposed the additions to H.245 to meetthe H.323 requirements.

H.310 (Broadband Audiovisual Communications Systems and Terminals) had a few minor changes made to the latestinput version (TD-72 , see changes in TD-33), and the result was determined at the SG 15 Plenary. H.310 is seenas overlapping the non-conversational system specified in the DAVIC (Digital Audio-Visual Council) project. Forthis reason, it had been deferred for determination from the February 1995 meeting, and every effort has been made toensure complementarity. Thus, H.245 was called upon to deal with in-band control for conversational applicationsand DSM-CC (Digital Storage Media - Command and Control) for non-conversational. The call control aspects,although having rather different characteristics in the two areas, are also aligned where relevant. Further textualrefinement of H.310 is planned to take place at the next Rapporteurs meeting in January.

Technical editor’s note: DSM-CC is a set of protocols intended to provide the control functions and operationsspecific to managing ISO/IEC 11172 (MPEG 1) and ISO/IEC 13818 (MPEG-2) bitstreams. WD-1 is ISO/IEC13818-6 Part 6 of ISO/IEC 13818 extension for DSM-CC Committee draft ballot.

H.321 is the adaptation of H.320 visual telephone terminals to B-ISDN environments. Minor changes were made tothe input version, COM 15-157, as reported in TD-49(P) . It was decided at the closing SG 15 plenary.

H.322 (ISO/IEC 13818-1) is the visual telephone systems and terminal equipment for local area networks whichprovide a guaranteed quality of service. On the basis of COM-15-158 and TD-17(P) , H.322 was decided at theopening SG 15 plenary .

H.323 (TD-30) is the visual telephone systems and equipment for local area networks which provide non-guaranteedquality of service. After extensive productive discussion, a version for Determination was produced in TD-77(P) .Further refinement, notably in the area of call control, was planned to take place at the next Rapporteurs meeting inJanuary.

H.225 (formerly H.22Z) is the media stream packetization and synchronization for visual telephone systems on non-guaranteed quality-of-service LANs (TD-76(P)). After further editing it was put up for determination. It wasgranted, although SG-15 had some misgivings about the number of points marked for further study and the expertswill have to use their skill and judgment to minimize the appearance of changes for the May meeting.

•H.222.0 (ISO/IEC 13818-1), systems aspects for moving pictures, had some amendments arising from MPEG-2work and was determined in TD-72(P) . TD-49 provides the amendments regarding the registration and copyrightidentifiers which were finalized at a recent MPEG meeting. H.222 specifies a unique 32 bit copyright identifier (e.g.ISBN, ISSN, ISRC, etc.); this amendment describes the procedures used to obtain a registration identifier.

H.222.1 is the multimedia multiplex and synchronization for audiovisual communication in ATM environments.Minor changes were made to the input version, COM-15-156, as found in TD-47(P) . It was decided at the closingSG 15 Plenary.

H.262 (ISO/IEC 13818-2), the generic coding of moving pictures, also had some amendments arising from MPEG-2work. It was determined in TD-71(P) . TD-50 provides the amendments regarding the registration and copyrightidentifiers which were finalized at a recent MPEG meeting. TD-51 contains two technical corrigenda to H.262which SG 15 intends to approve together at the May SG 15 meeting.

TD-2 a liaison from SG 9 includes a copy of draft Recommendation J.82 (decided), Transport of MPEG-2 constantbit rate television signals in B-ISDN. The liaison notes that J.82 covers transport of television signals to the enduser and is in line with Recommendations H.222.1 and H.310.

TD-14 is a liaison from ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC20/WG 11 (L. Chiariglione, Convener) which includes a copy of theCommittee draft ballot ISO/IEC 13818-9 extensions for real time interface for system decoders. The liaison asks forcontinued collaboration with SG 15.

REVISION OF NARROWBAND ISDN RECOMMENDATIONS

H.231, multipoint control units for audiovisual systems using digital channels up to 1920 kbit/s, was decided at theopening SG 15 Plenary as COM-15-160 with minor editorial corrections described in TD-3(P).

H.243 is the Recommendation on procedures for establishing communication between three or more audiovisualterminals using digital channels up to 1920 kbit/s. With minor changes as described in D.475 (US), TD-4(P),



and TD-44, H.243 was decided as COM-15-161. The main enhancement from the 1993 version is the picture-composition facility for “continuous-presence” multipoint. In response to a request from the T.120 group in TD-47 to solve the problem of stimulating MLP (Multi-Layer Protocol) channel rate changes from a terminal usingBAS (Bit-rate Allocation Signal) codes, it was decided to define a mode-preference code in H.230 leading into a tableof rates listed in H.243.

TD-16 a liaison from SG 8/Q10, provides a copy of T.128 (T.avc, audio visual control). T.128 is applicableacross a range of networks including those supported by H.243. Q10/8 sees T.128 providing enhanced functionalityto optional parts of H.243.

H.242, the system for establishing communication between audiovisual terminals using digital channels up to 2Mbit/s, was decided as COM-15-154, with changes described in TD-30(P) , taking into account:• Tightening of the definition of Capabilities• Commands after Sequence A must now be from Table A.1/H.221• Strengthening of text about sending commands before Sequence A, caution about freezing G.728 decoder during

delay insertion, clarifying text concerning order within capability sets (All of these are intended to reduce thechance of bad audio conditions at the start of videophone calls.)

• Clarification of the mode-preference procedure, including MLP rate control

H.263 capabilities for H.320 were not included in the present revision since further study of the exact formulation isneeded.

H.320, narrowband visual telephone systems and terminal equipment, was decided as COM-15-151, with minorchanges described in TD-48(P) . There were several contributions concerning the future addition (not in the 1995revision) of G.723.1 audio, H.262, and H.263 video as options into H.320:• COM-15-224 (US)• D.535 (D. Skran, AT&T, US)• D.664 (I. Sebestyen, Siemens)• D.665 (N. Kenyon, BT).

H.263 had been shown to provide a very significant improvement over H.261. It had been a policy decision in WP1/15 some years ago not to put other algorithms into H.320 until a notable improvement was offered, and even thento insist on backward compatibility. H.262 is better than H.261 only at higher rates, but has advantages forapplications other than pure videotelephony. It deals with interlace, has more flexible frame dropping, can be run inreverse, etc.

The 1995 version of H.221, Frame Structure for a 64 to 1920 kbit/s Channel in Audiovisual Teleservices, wasapproved by postal ballot on July 24. A further revision is planned for about two years hence. Certain aspects werefrozen for immediate implementation:• Changes requested by SG-9 in TD-29 for dealing with broadcast audio channels on restricted networks,• A reply (LS-9) containing further advice related to the desirable cross reference to H.242 that should accompany

this enhancement,• clarification of H-MLP-14.4k, and esc-CR as defined - no longer just reserved.

It was agreed that H.221/230 revision documents would not contain any references to H.262, H.263, and G.723.1,but that the US would circulate its revised proposals (taking into account other viewpoints expressed) to Q3/15 cor-respondents by the end of February, in order to reach a consensus for freezing in May 1996.

The 1995 version of H.230, Frame Synchronous Control and Indication Signals for Audiovisual Systems, wasapproved by postal ballot on July 24. A further revision is planned for about two years hence. Certain aspects werefrozen for immediate implementation: codepoints VIN2, VIC, VIM, MIH, NIR, and the mode-preference indicatorsfor audio, video, and MLP_rate and clarification of TII, NIA-s and TIP.

COM-15-234 details a number of options for dealing with the character set in H.230 that can no longer be specifiedwith reference to T.61. It was decided to replicate the necessary specification material from T.61 within H.230 itselfwithout any changes. Suitable extension to H.230 could be made in the future if there is demand for other sets suchas ISO-8859.



Q3/15 MULTIMEDIA HARMONIZATION

SIMULTANEOUS VOICE AND DATA SYSTEMS

TD-25(G) and TD-23(G) from WP 1/14 report on SG 14’s work on this topic.

Concern was expressed that the problem of the multiplicity of PSTN multimedia platforms with overlappingfunctionality had worsened since July, when the Joint Coordination Group (JCG)/AVMMS had requested that allinvolved should seek to ameliorate the situation. Not only had the V.34Q proposal appeared on the scene, but alsosuspend/resume had been added to V.gmux. It was also thought that the V.34Q held considerable promise, and areply (LS-2) to WP 1/14 encourages this work.

TD-4, TD-18 , and TD-24(G) are liaison statements from WP 1/14 concerning the speech coding G.dsvd plannedfor use with V.dsvd.

From the Q3/15 point of view, it was regretted that the speech coding used in H.324 had not been chosen, since itoffered adequate performance at a slightly lower bitrate and the prospect of better harmonization among multimediaterminal systems.

TD-12(G) and TD-20 are liaison statements from SG 8 regarding support of facsimile-plus-speech systems; TD-6is a liaison statement from SG 14 commenting on the issues regarding SVF (Simultaneous Voice and Facsimile).A reply was prepared (LS-10) notifying the inclusion in H.245 of the T.84, T.434, and T.120 codepoints requested.Furthermore WP 1/15 offered to include one for T.30, so that any of the several systems for PSTN using H.245 willnaturally be able to carry T.30 facsimile.

GENERAL MULTIMEDIA SERVICE

TD-11 (SG 1 draft F.GMM, General Multimedia Service for ISDN), TD-12 , TD-19 , and TD-26 are ongoingcorrespondence between SG 1, SG 8, SG 11, and SG 15 concerning a “general” multimedia communication serviceon ISDN. This scheme enables a multimedia terminal to make an ISDN call without first deciding whether the callis to be conversational, storage/retrieval, messaging, etc. Any appropriate terminal may answer the call, and bymeans of exchanges in H.221/242 and/or T.90 (extension being made in SG 8), a suitable session according to userneeds and equipment capabilities is initialized. This may be H.320 videotelephony, telephony, T.120 multimedia(with or without speech), facsimile, videotex, documents, etc. Furthermore, mid-call changes betweenconversational and non-conversational sessions can be made. TD-32 (N. Kenyon BT Labs), the first draft of a newRec. H.mmiw (multimedia interworking), addresses the procedures required. A liaison (LS-7) to the other SGsinforms them of this, pointing out that the service definition must be such that other terminals not having both con-versational and non-conversational capabilities must nevertheless respond to a call request containing the general“multimedia” HLC (Higher Layer Compatibility) codepoint.

Discussion on TD-32 pointed to the need for a more general approach, which would encompass a much wider rangeof interworking situations and take into account all the network types. It was agreed to modify the scope andstructure of the draft Recommendation to show this wider compass without, at this stage, putting more than a fewinitial notes in the proposed new sections. The content of this new draft was not approved in detail or frozen in anyway, but it will serve as a basis for a much improved Interworking Recommendation for the next meeting.Furthermore, it was hoped that this document could be the focus of attention of an interim correspondence that wouldconsider other related material known to the group.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

TD-17(G), from SG 2, requests advice concerning multilink PSTN multimedia. The reply, TD-67A1(P) ,informs SG 2 that the first version of H.324 is single link but has hooks for multilink that will be under study forthe enhanced version and that there is still time to take into account any concerns SG 2 may have. More guidancewas sought on certain points of detail.

TD-10 from SG 9, gives information about terminology for Digital Television. The response, TD-67A6(P) ,suggests that the term “interactive” might be confusing (e.g., versus conversational) and suggests a note be added.

TD-25 is a liaison from SG 11 replying to a request to review the JCG/AVMMS report. It notes that reference toQ.939 and Q.2939 in the Framework for Multimedia Recommendations should be to Q.931 and Q.2931. However,it was felt that both Q.931 and Q.939 contain material specific to videotelephony, that visibility of these should beretained, and that the documents be taken into account in the “General Multimedia” interworking studies.



TD-3 is a liaison statement from ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC6 WG 6. It invites review and comment on the attached June19 version of ISO/IEC-13871, Information Technology - Telecommunications and Information Exchange BetweenSystems - Private Telecommunications Networks - Digital Channel Aggregation and shows alignment with H.244work following earlier correspondence. A reply TD-67A4(P) expresses appreciation and a minor editorial point.

TD-7 is a liaison reply from SG 14 on dataport for videotelephones. TD-42 is a liaison statement from SG 14providing a status report of the work on Annex B/V.25ter, Synchronous Data Modes, and draft RecommendationV.ib. TD-17 is a liaison statement from SG 8 stating that Q10/8 has undertaken the work of drafting an Appendixfor the next revision of T.123 to suggest how the data protocol stacks specified in the body of the Recommendationmay be accessed through the kind of serial dataport that is found in most personal computers. It was felt that workin SG 14 appeared to be progressing according to WP 1 needs, and suitable specifications could be expected to beproduced in due course. No further action was required.

TD-13 is a liaison statement from SG 1 seeking comments on the mobile multimedia service description.Comments were returned in TD-67A8(P) .

TD-23 is a liaison statement from SG-13 requesting comments on a draft baseline document addressing networkissues for multimedia services with tables of properties/requirements. This is derived from the EURESCOM ProjectP404 and lists four categories of multimedia services, videotelephony, games, teleshopping and video-on-demand.Errors and omissions were noted, but since it was not clear how this document would advance the specification ofinfrastructure systems, it was decided not to send a detailed reply at the current time.

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT ITU STUDY PERIOD

The preparation of Study Questions for the new study period (1997 to year 2000) was started; it is particularlyimportant, since consideration is being given to bringing together much of the Multimedia middle-layer studies bymeans of a Joint Working Party, new/changed Study Group, Task Force, or other device.

It was agreed that a useful way to map out the study work covering the whole multimedia area would be on the basisof a matrix (Matrix 1).

It was seen that Questions A, B, C, and D are oriented to groups of networks having fairly similar characteristics,while the orthogonal Questions X, Y, and Z are of a kind addressing topics pertinent to several or all the columns.It was believed that such a scheme would provide a good basis for management and review by WP 1/15, and that bygood collaboration

Question A: Verylow bitrate MMsystems

Question B:N_ISDN MMsystems

Question C:B_ISDN MMsystems

Question D: LANMM systems

Question X: Harmonization &Interworking of MM Apps & Sv.Question Y: MCUs, ControlQuestion Z: Advanced coding

Matrix 1. Proposed Map of ITU Multimedia Work Areas.

between the various Rapporteurs, any conflict of responsibilities could be resolved.

Full details are contained in TD-66(P) , but some points of general interest were:• The various system columns take care of conversational and non-conversational applications• Each column has work that is not common with other columns, and much Recommendation drafting would be

columnar, as at present• “Control” includes such aspects as security, in-band management, call control interworking, etc.

The draft Questions will be refined prior to the May 1996 meeting. Input to this process is welcomed.

JCG/AVMMS

COM-15-169 (BT) argues against the adoption by the ITU of conflicting Recommendations covering audio+datasystems, on the grounds that there is insignificant difference in overall delay, and other differences are minor.



The Chair, M. Yamashita (NTT), reported on the TSAG (Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group)deliberations concerning the future management of ITU multimedia studies and provided discussion material in TD-19(G), TD-20(G), and TD-21(G). These note three inputs for discussion:• A Canadian proposal to abolish JCGs and have better coordination via joint meeting of Working Party leaders

and Rapporteurs.• A US proposal to have a Study Group for AVMMS• A proposal for the meeting of SG Chairs to consider the establishment of “task forces” which have the power to

create Recommendations.Related proposals were made in D.481 (Siemens, see also D.481R1 ) for a Joint Working Party, in TD-10(P)(Q3/15 Rapporteur) for consolidation of all SG 15 multimedia work into WP 1/15, and in TD-22(G) (WP 1/14Chair) for a Joint Rapporteurs’ activity. Members were encouraged to input their views to the JCG/AVMMS viaM. Yamashita as soon as possible.

Norman Kenyon, BT Labs

SG 15 WP 2, VOICE PROCESSING AND OPERATION FUNCTION

Q4/Q8 ALGORITHMIC TECHNIQUES IN VOICEBAND TELECOMMUNICATIONSNETWORKS/INTERACTION OF FACSIMILE AND HIGH SPEED VOICEBAND DATA WITH ALGORITHMICPROCESSING IN VOICE NETWORKS.

TD-8, the report of the experts meeting in Washington DC in September 1995, includes in Appendix II adiscussion of the requirements and applications for PSTN support of multi-media terminals (from an originaldocument by AT&T). This opens up the issue of terminal-to-network channels distinct from terminal-to-terminalchannels.

A discussion took place on the interaction of voice activity detection algorithms with network signal processingequipment. These algorithms would provide robust operation in noisy acoustic environments that differs from theenvironment in which the traditional network speech detection algorithms operate for echo cancellers,DCME/PCME. It was agreed that some background/tutorial information that cannot be captured in arecommendation, but that may be needed in the future, should be maintained.

Work continued on the draft text of G.fax-test, Test Methodology for G3 Facsimile Processing Equipment in thePSTN. This draft provides tests to determine effects of the signal processing equipment within the network on G3facsimile (and data modems) traffic. The draft of G.fax-test coming into the meeting is in Appendix I of TD-82/15 . An editorial team led by France Telecom created TD-73 as the revised version of G.fax-test. Draft G.fax-testalso includes a section (11.6) on voice band data quality utilizing V.32 modems.

Agreements were made on control channel requirements (terminal to/from network signaling) in support ofmultimedia terminals and protocols. It was agreed (in TD-8) that the signaling protocol could be based on Q.931,T.120, the MCU suite of protocols or some adaptation of other existing protocols. An initial proposal (TD-72)based on Q.931 was presented to advance the work.

TD-92 is a liaison from Q4&8/15 to SG 14 that offers to exchange information on the various issues related toV.dispatch. Attachment I includes Q4&8/15’s thoughts on the development of a one octet CRC (for V.gmux);Attachment II (copy of TD-53) includes draft Recommendation G.mmpp (multi-media packet protocol) which usesa UIH frame for the transport of voice that was proposed at an experts meeting in Washington, DC September,1995. The control function, while not defined in this document, could be based on Q.931. TD-92 also suggeststhat the current version of V.gmux needs to be modified to take into account the use of UIH frames for voice traffic.

Q5/15 VARIABLE-BIT RATE EMBEDDED OPERATION FOR LD-CELP

TD-74 (S. Hayashi, NTT) is the Rapporteur’s report. At the Montreal meeting in June 1995 the extension of 16kbit/s LD-CELP (Annex I of G.728) for robust operation against frame-erasure condition was not approved as it didnot pass under one condition in one language. Several possible direction were discussed, but no new papers tofurther this work were presented to this meeting

Mitsubishi presented the text for the draft Annex H of G.728 for variable bit rate operation below 16 kbit/s(D.580 ). Mitsubishi also presented the digital test sequence (D.581 ) to verify that the algorithm is correctlyimplemented. The host lab for variable bit rate operation below 16 kbit/s is Deutsche Telekom. The char-



acterization subjective tests will be available at the SQEG expert meeting of February 1996. COMSAT kindlyresponded to the request for the characterization tests of DTMF.

D.662 (MOC, Israel) is a new algorithm for the variable bit rate operation of LD-CELP for voice-band dataapplications at rates greater than 16 kbit/s. The terms of reference for this DCME requirement are in Annex A ofTD-74 . Preliminary subjective and objective tests seem to indicate that the algorithm could meet the requirements,except for that of speech quality dependency. Utilizing V.34 Supra 288 modems, the test indicate that the algorithmis capable of transmitting V.34 signals of 21,600 bit/s. The general degradation caused by the algorithm is one ortwo V.34 rates lower (e.g., 19,200 to 16,800, etc.). The requirements were changed to make them consistent withthe requirements on other coders. There was concern that the algorithm presented was significantly different than thealgorithm previously presented at the meeting of the experts in Munich in October 1994. MOC promised to submitthe high-level description of the algorithm in February 1996 so that the testing phase could start. SG 12 will beasked to draft the subjective test methodology.

Q6/15 AUDIO AND WIDEBAND (7 KHZ) SPEECH CODING IN PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONSNETWORKS

The Rapporteur’s meeting report is TD-75 (R. DeIacovo, CSELT) . The terms of reference for wideband coding(Annex A TD-75) were revised to include additional degradation figures for detected frame erasures conditions. Thecoder is to have two modes: Mode A is a low-delay and high-complexity coder. Mode B is a high-delay low-complexity coder. Each coder has 3 bit rates 16, 24 and 32 kbit/s. A correspondence group will prepare aqualification test plan by June. The deadline for submission of a candidate is September 1995. The completion datefor the draft recommendation was advanced to July 1997. Candidates are to be presented in February 1996 andhardware models shall be provided by the proponents.

A revised subjective qualification test plan, based on TD-56 , will be available at the anonymous ftp addressftp.std.com at the directory vendors/PictureTel/sgp15_q6.

D.527 (PictureTel), the US contribution on the need to consider reverberation (spacing of 3 to 10 feet between themicrophone and speaker) in wideband codec testing, was accepted. The meeting decided that there was not sufficientknowledge to fix the controllable requirements, and the change in the terms of reference only requests comparableperformance to G.722. However, codec providers will be required to provide, for the qualification phase, a demo tapecontaining speech samples in reverberant conditions.

Q7/15 ENCODING OF SPEECH AT BIT RATES AROUND 4 KBIT/S

TD-81 (G. Schroeder, Deutsche Telekom) is the Rapporteur’s report. The terms of reference for a new toll-quality 4kbit/s voice coding algorithms were revised by elaborating the requirements specification for the random frameerasure condition, the delay condition and the background noise condition. Candidate proposals are expected by theMay 1996 SG 15 meeting. TD-82 is the new terms of reference.

TD-24 (Telenor, CNET, Deutsche Telekom) provides the subjective test plan created in cooperation with SG12/SQEG. During the meeting some improvements were added. The revised test plan is TD-83 . To receive anelectronic version, e-mail [email protected] with the contents “send-q7-test-plan” only.

Q9/15 SPEECH PACKETIZATION AND WIDEBAND PACKET SYSTEMS

TD-68 (D.K. Sparrell, AT&T) is the Rapporteur’s report. SG 15 decided Appendix 1 (Packetization Guide) G.764,Voice Packetization - Packetization Voice Protocols, and Appendix 1 (Guide to PCME) G.765, Packet CircuitMultiplication Equipment. The texts of the draft TMN Recommendations were advanced:• G.sparm (SPTT Managed Objects) TD-32• G.snem (SPTT Network Element Manager) TD-31• G.cmif (SPTT configuration map interchange format) TD-33 .(SPTT = Signal Processing Transmission Terminal)The goal is to complete these Recommendations at an interim meeting (Spring 1996) and continue work on G.print.

Q10/15 SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE TOOLS FOR STANDARDIZATION OF SPEECH AND AUDIOCODING ALGORITHMS

The text of G.192 (COM-15-150), A Common Digital Parallel Interface for Speech Coding StandardizationActivities, was agreed for decision. PKI/Germany contacted the Rapporteur, confirming that they claim no IPR onG.192. The software tool library was updated, TD-27(P)© is the new revision of Annex A, the list of software tools



available. The new document is Evolving Software Tools Library, Release of November/95 (eSTL9511), and isavailable by request to the Rapporteur to ITU members. The text of the current version of the Software ToolsLibrary Manual is TD-69 .

Q11/15 EQUIPMENT FOR STORED AND DIGITIZED CODED INFORMATION

There were no contributions. This question will be dropped at the next study period.

Q12/15 ENCODING OF SPEECH AT BIT-RATES AROUND 8 KBIT/S

G.729

TD-79 (G. Schroeder, Deutsche Telekom) is the Rapporteur’s report. G.729 (COM-15-152), Coding of Speechat 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic-code-excited linear-prediction, was decided by SG 15. In the future,additional algorithmic features of interest will be pursued: floating-point version, a voice activity detectionalgorithm, lower bit rate extensions (D.541 from NTT proposed 6.4 kbit/s), and a variable bit rate extension.Attached to TD-79 is a paired comparison test for verification of fixed-point/floating point interoperability. D.511from BT proposes to utilize the VAD algorithm defined for GSM (ETS 300-580-6, full rate and ETS 300-581-6, halfrate) as the basis of the G.729 VAD.

TD-48 from the SQEG Chairman presents the results of the channel degradations tests on G.729 from CSELT.TD-49 (Deutsche Telekom/FTZ) describes three optional tests performed to characterize the subjective performanceof G.729. The tests were:• Interworking with other wireless and transmission standards,• Effect of environmental noise,• Effect of channel degradations.

TD-66 (SQEG, prepared by AT&T) provides the results of similar tests from BNR, FT/CNET and BT. Insummary, the results from the three papers show that the final version of G.729 fulfills the requirements. TD-64 isa list of organizations (99) that have received G.729 C source code.

G.729 performance characterization for network signaling tones and DTMF results were not available. Results fromtests by COMSAT test facilities and a hardware implementation from the host lab of Deutsche Telekom will bemade available in February.

Currently only AT&T has provide the Rapporteur with a list of their IPR related to G.729.

TD-6 is a liaison from ITU-R Task Group 8/1 noting their interest in G.729 work. They request to expand the testcondition to include 3% frame erasure. This liaison raises several more issues and includes a draft of Annex CFPLMTS.REVAL, Test environments and deployment models.

G.D S V D

TD-69 is the report of this meeting by the G.dsvd Rapporteur J. Magill (AT&T UK). TD-30 is the final reportfrom COMSAT Labs which indicates that the DSP Group was the only coder to meet the terms of reference.D.543 , Report about the host lab processing (NTT), and D.544 , Report on the subjective tests of candidate codecsfor DSVD (NTT), provide background information to the test results. TD-18(G) is the report of the work cominginto this meeting and includes draft specifications of the University of Sherbrooke and DSP Group vocoders.

Selecting between the two coders for SG 14 DSVD applications was the most controversial part of the SG 15meeting. The University of Sherbrooke vocoder is G.729-based and can interwork with full G.729 coders (bit streamcompatibility). The data rate of the University of Sherbrooke coder is 7.9 kbit/s which could fit easily into a 8kbit/s transport mechanism such as specified by H.221. The DSP Group vocoder is 8.8 kbit/s and G.723-based,making it simpler for H.324 implementors to utilize.

TD-59 includes a contribution from an interim G.dsvd meeting by PictureTel. It provides a discussion of theirreasons for desiring a G.729-based/interworking vocoder (interworking: H.324 already supports G.729 as an optionand such an option is likely for H.320 as well). Coming from a likely H.324 vendor, this paper was significant.

Based on a suggestion from T. Irmer, the director of the ITU, a straw poll was conducted to assess the attitudes of thevarious organizations. Excluding the votes of the proponents, 20 organizations voted in favor of the University ofSherbrooke simplification of G.729 and 2 votes were cast in favor of the DSP Group/Audio Code algorithm. One ofthese two votes was from Siemens. The DSP Group’s representative Y. Be’ery claimed to control the Israeli vote



and threatened to veto any proposed coder that did not include an intellectual property right from the DSP group. Inan attempt to reach a consensus, an ad-hoc group was established to generate guidelines on how to merge the twocoders by February 1996. The terms of reference would be the same as the original terminal references with G.729interoperability required. Y. Be’ery proposed that the compromise coder should comprise as much code from G.723as possible. Subjective tests will be run with two languages, and testing should include the original University ofSherbrooke coder. Under that compromise plan, there would be an interim working party meeting no later than mid-February to put the Recommendation for determination in time for the May SG 15 meeting.

The proposal elicited long discussions and the participants felt that it did not address the following issues:• Who would participate in the joint work?• Should be it restricted to the original five participants or opened again to new submissions?• How to coordinate the work among the participants?• What guidance to give to the proponents?• How to resolve potential disputes?• Who would run the subjective tests?• Who would fund the testing?• Is there a possibility of having a working party meeting?

NTT agreed to see if it could act as the test/host laboratory but it was not clear that they would have the resourcesavailable at the right time. However, the procedure to resolve potential disputes could not be agreed. There was astrong sentiment among the participants that the University of Sherbrooke coder be the default coder if thecompromise coder does not show significant improvements or if a consensus could not be reached in February. Y.Be’ery objected to that proposal. Siemen’s representative, in contrast, suggested that a coin be tossed to resolve anypotential deadlock. At this point, the group felt that the probability of success was not high enough to warrant theexecution of the proposed program, and the group settled on the coder proposed by the University of Sherbrooke. Itwas selected for determination as an Annex to G.729, to be decided under Resolution 1 procedures at the May/Junemeeting of SG 15. The DSP Group (Israel) was opposed, and BT expressed strong reservations concerning the needfor the G.dsvd considering the speech coders already defined in videotelephony, e.g., G.723 in H.324.

Q13/15 DIGITAL CIRCUIT MULTIPLICATION EQUIPMENT AND SYSTEMS

TD-97 (Y. Naito, Mitsubishi) is the Rapporteur’s report. Work on G.763 (TD-28), DCME using 32 kbit/sADPCM and digital speech interpolation, and G.766 (TD-29), Facsimile demodulation/remodulation for DCME,and TD-29A1 (SDL diagrams for TD-29), continued with the purpose of seeking determination at this SG 15plenary. D.579 (Mitsubishi), Modification of TCH (transparent circuit handling) process for the fake messages andthe recovery from power down, describes the complete proposal for the modification of the TCH process in G.763principally agreed at the Yokohama Rapporteur’s meeting, May 31-June 7, 1995.

TD-99 provides the editorial corrections to G.763 (TD-28). TCH was the only point of contention with G.763 atthis meeting. A compromise proposal was agreed by a drafting group but failed because a delay would be introducedin transparent call establishment. ECI (Israel) introduced a previous proposal made in Yokohama. This proposal islogical but requires large-scale modification that would delay the progress of inter-operability testing being conductedby INTELSAT, and the difference could not be resolved. G.763 determination was postponed to the next SG 15meeting. This also delays G.766 which is ready for determination as the only changes made were editorial (changesin TD-98). The next meeting of this Question will be in March, 1996 with the joint Q4/15, Q8/15, Q9/15 andQ15/15 meeting in France.

µ-Law Channel Test Vector was prepared by the Rapporteur (TD-25). ECI, NEC and Mitsubishi will evaluate thevalidity of this test vector.

TD-43 is a reference liaison from L. Brown (Rapporteur V.8bis SG 14) on the use of V.8bis MS (mode select, aV.21 high band HDLC format) signal by CME. Q13/15 confirmed that all the current DCME cannot decode theV.21 signal without 2100 Hz occurring previously.

Q14/15 DESIGN AND INTERACTION OF ACOUSTIC PROCESSING DEVICES

TD-4, liaison from SG 12, describes their work plan and the focus of their work on subjective speech quality. Thework plan includes a draft Recommendation on general problems of AEC (Acoustic Echo Control) in 1997, and adraft Recommendation dealing with general speech enhancement devices in 1998. This liaison also proposed that theG.167 AEC work be split. TD-3, another liaison from SG 12, provides copies of P.sgn (draft Recommendation ontest signals for use in telephonometry) and P.83 (draft revised Recommendation on Subjective performance



assessment of telephone-band and wideband digital codecs). Additional information on test signals is in D.477(Deutsche Telekom), Starting point of the CSS (Composite Source Signal) for single and double talk measurements,and in D.566 (M. Givens, AT&T), CSS level measurement technique.

Q14/15 agreed that G.167 will be split into terminal aspects of acoustic echo controllers, and separately, theirinteraction with the network. The terminal aspects will be the responsibility of SG 12. Thus, chapters 1-5 ofG.167 will be included in a new P-series recommendation, and an improved chapter 6 will form the content of therevised G.167. Since the current chapter 6 contains only general information, more work will be needed in the newstudy period. TD-78 is the liaison to SG 12 describing this split.

Q14/15 will be combined with Q15/15 in the next study period, with the focus of defining the interactions ofacoustic signal controllers and network equipment.

Q15/15 NETWORK ECHO CONTROL

Work continued on the development of recommendation G.IEC (improved echo canceller, an update of G.165), inparticular to define the use of a composite source signal level measurement technique. Information on the compositesource signal will be added as Annex C of G.IEC. TD-47 is the revised draft of G.IEC. D.480 , DeutscheTelekom, provides draft Appendix A of G.IEC, Guidance for the Application of echo cancellers, a tutorial on the useof echo control. Discussions were on the following tests:

Test No. Input Documents Description1 D.483 , D.567 Steady state residual and returned echo level test2 D.478 , D.500 Convergence test3 D.479 , D.501 , D.663 Performance under conditions of double talk6 D.502 Non-divergence on narrow-band signals7 D.563 , D.569 Stability test9 D.503 , D.565 Comfort noise test

11 D.485 , D.562 , D.568 Tandem echo canceller test12 D.504 Residual acoustic echo test14 D.505 Performance with ITU-T low bit rate coders in end path

More results are needed on the convergence test and there was agreement on the way to present the results.Agreements were made on the tests for non-divergence on narrow-band signals, stability, comfort noise and on arecommended echo path for echo canceller testing purposes.

It was agreed in principle to add a double-talk test (under the name of test 3d).

Regarding the new techniques proposed by SG 14 such as V.8bis and framed QADM with V.34, it was not clearwhether these new techniques would affect the network echo cancellers; there was insufficient time to fully discussthe topic.

D.564 (M. Givens, AT&T, supported by the US T1A1 committee) notes the need for tests of echo cancellerperformance with low speed modems. D.570 (same author) explains in considerable detail the cause of low-speeddata modem failures caused by interaction with echo cancellers.

A joint meeting with Q4&8/15, Q9/15 and Q13/15 is planned for the Spring of 1996.

Q16/15 SPEECH, VOICEBAND AND AUDIO TRANSMISSION IN ATM/B-ISDN SYSTEMS

TD-105 (R. Montagna, CSELT, Italy) is the Rapporteur’s report. D.509 (UK) proposes that synchronous timingbe maintained between transmitter and receiver voice codecs across an ATM network. If this is not possible, thenalternative means are described to convey the timing information across the ATM network. Annex 7 of TD-68 (D.K. Sparrell, AT&T) is a discussion of efficient transport of ATM voice traffic on the PSTN and proposes an ATMto CME interface for this function.

TD-18 (SG 13) indicates that SG 13 has reached agreement on the use of AAL1 for the support of CBR voicebandsignals. The AAL will support this by providing synchronous service (neither SRTS [synchronous residual timestamp] nor adaptive clock is used) with single octet delineation (pointer is not used). All 47 octets of the AAL-PDUpayload are used for the voiceband signal from a single source (i.e., cells are completely filled and the ATM virtualcircuit supports a single voice band connection). Draft Recommendation I.363.1, B-ISDN ATM Adaption Layer(AAL) Specification Type 1 and 2, is attached to TD-18 for information. TD-9(G), another liaison from SG 13,reports that SG 13 is considering a study to develop a new AAL which supports more than one user information



stream within one ATM cell payload. Possible applications include support for mobile communications where shortlength of fixed or variable data and low bit-rates are used.

Time was not available to update the current draft of I.ATM-V. An interim meeting will be necessary to completethis work for determination in May 1996. Mid-February is proposed.

Future work will include:• Efficient transmission facilities over ATM;• Signal Transmission Quality Monitoring;• Identification of interworking scenarios between fixed and mobile network systems and systems implemented

using ATM technology.

Q32/15 IMPACT OF TRANSMISSION CHARACTERISTICS ON MOBILE SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONSSYSTEM SIGNAL PROCESSING ASPECTS

TD-85 (R. Smith, Inmarsat) is the Rapporteur’s report. No documents were submitted for this Question. It wasagreed that channel error models that have been developed for existing Inmarsat digital mobile terminals should bemodified to be compatible with the ITU common digital parallel interface as proposed in draft RecommendationG.HT. Since the last SG 15 meeting in February 1995, work has been completed on developing channel errormodels for all existing Inmarsat digital mobile satellite standards. Models now exist for Inmarsat-B (16 kbit/scodec), Inmarsat-M, Inmarsat Aero-H (9.6 kbit/s codec), Inmarsat Aero-I (4.8 kbit/s codec) and Inmarsat Mini-M (4.8kbit/s codec). In some cases, these error models exist for more than one propagation condition (e.g., urban andrural). Currently these models exist only as serial bit error file format. It was agreed that these models should befurther developed to represent errored channels compatible with the common digital parallel interface for speech andaudio.

NEW QUESTIONS

TD-103 (M. Sherif, AT&T, Rapporteur for New Questions) provides draft text for new and continued questions forWP 2/15. It suggests the following significant changes:

• Combine Q4 and Q8 and expand the scope of the new question to cover layers 2-4 aspects of the PSTN, LAN,cellular/mobile, ISDN and B-ISDN. Proposed title: Interaction of multimedia and high-speed voice-band datawith signal processing equipment in the PSTN.

• A new Question 9 which combines the TMN aspects of all PDH (packet data handling) signal processingequipment.

• Combine all equipment aspects on DCME/PCME and VCLAD (voice cell assembly device) in the newQuestion 13.

• Delete Question 11.• Combined Questions 14 and 15.

TD-19(P) from the Chairman of SG 15 provides guidelines for new questions, and notes the need for SG 15 toparticipate in the following trends: GII, Multimedia, Open Networks, Photonic Networks, Integrated Transport Sys-tems (e.g., ADSL). It also includes copies of two draft new Questions from SG 9 Asymmetrical Networks forTelevision Distribution Services, such as Video on Demand and Physical Distribution of Multichannel MultipointDistribution System (MMDS or microwave wireless distribution) Services.

Mostafa Hashem Sherif, AT&T



SG 15 WP 1 AND WP 2 MEETING ROSTER, NOVEMBER 14 – 22, 1995

P.A. Probst, Switzerland Chair SG 15M. Yamashita, Japan Acting Chair WP 1/15G.K. Helder, USA Acting Chair WP 2/15

INTELSAT M. JonesTSB F. Bigi

ArgentinaTelefónica de Arg. E.C. SchieppatiTelefónica de Arg. A.M. Szpaizer

Australia R. AyreS. Brewer

Canada L. AmarP. Wery

Bell - Northern Res. K. AhmadBell - Northern Res. D. HoBell - Northern Res. R. RabipourMitel A. TulaiTéléglobe Canada S. Sharma

China Ping Wei LeMao QianYi Chang ShengYao Ren ShunHe YidaChen Yun-ZhiHao Zhian

DenmarkTele Danmark E. NielsenTele Danmark H. Nielson

Finland O. AaltoHelsinki Telephone S. TörmäläMartis C. BaloghMartis M. Givens

France J.P. BlinP. CombescureG. Joncour

Alcatel CIT C. StenstromFrance Telecom G. DupinFrance Telecom F. LacordaireFrance Telecom C. LamblinFrance Telecom Y. LoussouranFrance Telecom I. RajaomananaFrance Telecom J. ThiennotIBM Europe C. GallianMATRA Télécom. P. Lockwood

Germany M. BeiererH.L. KofflerG. SchröderI. SebestyenG. Zelder

DeutscheTelekom H.W. GierlichDeutscheTelekom H. KullmanDeutsche Telekom J. OttDeutsche Telekom W. PerskeDeutsche Telekom G. ReimDeutscheTelekom A. SchimmSiemens M. TerschluseWandel & Goltermann W. Miller

Great Britain D. FisherJ. GibbsA. Nunn

AT & T Network UK J. MagillBT D. AlleyBT P. BarrettBT N. KenyonBT M. NilssonBT R. ReevesCoherent Com. Sys. C. ReeseCoherent Com. Sys. J. SkeneTektronix UK Ltd. M. Lum

Greece Th. PapaioannouHungary

Hungarian Telecom. L. BarnaIran M. Beheshti-Pour

M. HosseinzadehIsrael A. Amir

Y. BeeryS. Benjamin

L. BialikE. DoronA. SattA. SegevI. Shapira

Italy S. MorelloAlcatel Italia M. FrattiCSELT R. Drogo de IacovoCSELT R. MontagnaCSELT P. UsaiEricsson Fatme M. Petrucci

Japan T. KodateT. Nakazawa

Fujitsu N. OhuchiFujitsu K. SakaiGraphic Com. Labs. S. OkuboHitachi T. KazawaJapan Telecom Y. YamazakiKDD H. NakajimaKDD M. WadaMitsubishi Electric Y. NaitoNEC M. SerizawaNEC M. ShintaNEC T. TajimaNTT S. ChikaraNTT S. HayashiNTT H. KoteraNTT Y. SatoNTT T. UchidaNTT M. YamashitaNTT Mobile Com. T. KawaharaNTT Mobile Com. N. NakaOki Electric K. IkedaOki Electric A. Shimbo

KoreaKorea Telecom Jin-Hee KimSamsung Elec. In Suk ChunSamsung Elec. Kook Kim Hong

NetherlandsRoyal PTT Nederland K. Rijkse

Norway J. KiilB. Nordset

TELENOR O. HansenTELENOR J.E. KnudsenTELENOR B. NordsetTELENOR H. Sandgrind

Portugal V. RamosRussia V. Biryukov

V. MinkinT. Petrenko

SingaporeSingapore Telecom K. Kuan Choon Shiong

SpainTelefónica de España A.L. Lozano

SwedenL.M. Ericsson E. EkuddenL.M. Ericsson A. ErikssonL.M. Ericsson A. HöglundL.M. Ericsson S. KarlssonL.M. Ericsson A. LindshamTELIA J. AlexanderssonTELIA E. BryntseTELIA Th. Nöjd

Switzerland P.A. ProbstSiemens - Albis W. BoehlSwiss Telecom PTT M. PralongSwiss Telecom PTT P. Vörös

Syrian Arab Republic N. KisrawiUkraine N. Birukov

V. KatokB. KoropS. NesvitskajaV. Yefremov



USA G. FerenoD. LindberghM. NeibertJ. NgG. RekstadA. SchianoR. Shaporst

Analog Devices V. BulayewskyAT & T J. AndersonAT & T P. BinsAT & T K. BletteAT & T M. BuckleyAT & T R. CoxAT & T G. FreundlichAT & T P. KroonAT & T M. PerkinsAT & T C. PosthumaAT & T M. SherifAT & T D. SkranAT & T D. SparrellAT & T Y. TaoAT & T K. Tewani

Compression Labs D. KlenkeCOMSAT Corporation S. Campos NetoCreative Labs C. GatesDataBeam C.J. StarkeyDSC Communications S. BootmanGeneral DataComm M. McLoughlinIBM S. ArdalanIntel V. KumarMCI Telecom. R. BornMCI Telecom. H. SchoonMotorola V. EyubogluPictureTel A. CrossmanPictureTel G. HelderPictureTel R. WebberRockwell Telecom. T. GearyRockwell Telecom. J. JohnstonRockwell Telecom. H. SuSprint International M. SucharczukTexas Instruments F. WhittingtonUS West Adv. Tech. J. DahlVideoserver C. GrandgentVideoTelecom D. Hein

COMMUNICATIONS STANDARDS REVIEW ALSO PUBLISHES:

Communications Standards Review–Radiocommunications (ISSN 1081-6852), a technicaljournal that reports on U.S. (TIA) and International (ITU-R) Standards Committee meetings in wirelessWAN data communications. CSR-R is published six to eight times per year.

Communications Standards Summary (ISSN 1075-5721), a quarterly publication reportingon all active projects and recently completed standards of the Telecommunications Industry Association’s(TIA’s) TR-committees. Authorized by TIA.

Fiber Optics Standards Summary (ISSN 1081-6844), a quarterly publication reporting on all activeprojects and recently completed standards of the Telecommunications Industry Association’s (TIA’s) FO-committees. Authorized by TIA.

For more details: Visit http://www.csrstds.com. To receive a complimentary issue of any of CSR’stechnical journals, please contact Elaine Baskin, tel +1 415 856-9018, fax +1 415 856-6591, Internet:[email protected], CIS: 72540,113



REPORT OF ETSI TERMINAL EQUIPMENT (TE) PLENARY MEETINGNOVEMBER 27 – DECEMBER 1, 1995, ANTWERP, BELGIUM

TD 6 lists the ongoing actions and actions whose status has changed since the Nuremberg TE plenary (December1994); TD 7 gives the same for the June 1995 plenary. TD 21 discharges actions resulting from the June 1995TE plenary.

The Chair’s report is separated into two documents, TE(95)133 Rev.1 and TD 5 , which gives the latest update.The Chair attended 18 meetings since the last TE Plenary.

MULTIMEDIA MANAGEMENT GROUP (MMG)

In the absence of the Chair (due to illness), K. Sambor (Austrian PTT) chaired the meeting.

TE(95)155 reports on the last meeting of MMG held in Athens. TD 26 presents a mark-up of parts of DTR/TE10012, “TE Multimedia Standardization Areas to be Covered,” issued by K. Sambor. TD 27 presents commentson the same documents presented by PT74 from TE2. TD 36 and TD 37 from K. Sambor presents comments onthe same document. The TE Chair indicated that, in view of the MMG Chair absence, those comments will bepassed on to him for changes to be made to his referenced document and can be discussed at the next MMG meeting.TD 39 gives the latest version of DTR/TE 10012 prior to the TE Plenary. (It does not incorporate the commentsmade above.) An ad-hoc group on Milestone 3 Report on MMG planned to meet after the completion of the TEplenary. TD 46 is the proposed content of the report. It picks up the previously mentioned documents and morecomments issued by the TE4 former Chair. A cleaned up version of this report on standardization will be availablein February 1996.

EUROPEAN MULTIMEDIA PROJECTS

A. Scrase (ETSI Secretariat) presented his notes on a meeting held in Brussels at the invitation of the CEC where anumber of MM Pilot Projects in Europe were presented. While the participants did present the set up and the goalsof those large scale experiments, none of them wished to present either conclusions or financial implications. Someof the technologies used for those MM projects appeared tuned to a small number of users but do not appear to befitted to large scale Video on Demand (for example, FM bandwidth allocation).

SRC6 IMPLEMENTATION STARTER GROUP

Strategic Review Committee 6 (SRC6) was in charge of defining a set of coordinated actions and timing in the fieldof standardization while ETSI was to ensure proper availability of the European Information Infrastructure in duetime. TE(95)120 is the list of recommendations put out by the SRC6. TE(95)197 gives the TE Chair evaluation ofSRC6 conclusion impacts on TE work. TD 15 gives the content of a report to the ETSI TA (Technical Assembly)on the EPIISG (European Project on Information Infrastructure Starter Group) progress. EPIISG has been created asa result of SRC6 Recommendations. A number of liaisons have also been established between EPIISG andStandardization bodies and fora. A road map for EII (European Information Infrastructure) standardization was beingprepared for the end of December.

TE1, TELEMATIC AND RETRIEVAL SERVICES

A list of documents for approval by TE was first discussed. The list was as follows:

• API (Application Programming Interface) for the manipulation of multimedia and hypermedia informationobjects. This document, created by ETSI TE1 (which was congratulated by ISO for its good job) was also pickedup by an ISO CD ballot. This raised the question of duplication of effort in Standards and at the NSOs (NationalStandards Organizations). The TE Chair insisted that this document be circulated for PE under ETSI rules andthat ISO should be informed by letter of this situation.

• Representations of scripts for AVI (Interactive Audiovisual Services) applications was approved to go to PE.• VEMMI (Videotex Enhanced Man Machine Interface) extensions were approved to go to UAP (Unified

Accelerated Procedure). It was based upon ITU-T Recommendation T.107 which had been voted under the Reso-lution 1 mechanism in March 1995. Once this document is approved, the old document, ETS 300282, should bedeleted by the proper action toward the NSOs.

• Extensions of Videotex data syntax for alpha mosaic display was approved to go to UAP.• Priority setting and description of interactive audio-retrieval services on narrowband networks will be published as

an ETR and was approved by TE to go to publication (no need to go to PE).



A number of new work items were proposed to TE, and most of them were approved with some editorial changes.TE1 established a liaison with DAVIC and obtained agreement to work on the following:

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: coding of multimedia and hypermediainformation for basic multimedia applications (MHEG-5) not done by DAVIC. TE1 has the expertise sinceMHEG-5 is a subset of MHEG-1 for which TE1 already did the coding in the past.

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: use of DSMCC for basic multimediainformation based on the ISO CD document.

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: API for MHEG-5. While DAVIC has alreadypublished a set of specs, it was not the intent of ETSI TE1 to duplicate work but to fill the gaps in the DAVICspecs and to contribute to standards where it is known that DAVIC will not do it.

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: VEMMI enhancements to support broad bandmultimedia information retrieval services.

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: application walk-through of a DAVIC system.(This will not become an ETS but an ETR.)

• End-to-end protocols for multimedia information retrieval services: Interworking between DAVIC-compliantbroadband systems and videotex systems. (ETR will be the deliverable.)

As a result of the approval of the document on priority setting by TE (see above), three new work items wereproposed. Only one received enough member support and that was Access to interactive audio-visual retrievalservices without data facility: access for ISDN or PSTN video telephony terminals to audio-visual data bases usingDTMF.

Four project teams report into TE1. PT73V was working on the API for File Transfer, both through FTAM (FileTransfer, Access and Management) and Euro-file transfers. PT75 will do most of the work on the new work itemslisted above on multimedia information retrieval services. PT53 and PT63 had basically completed their jobs.

TE2, TELEMATIC TERMINALS

WG 1 FACSIMILE GROUP 3 AND GROUP 4

A revised version of ETS 300242 (G3 facsimile equipment) was approved to go to Public Inquiry. An animateddiscussion followed to decide what additional activity should be carried on in the fax group 3. Some memberssupported continuing work to establish European requirements and conformance tests to ETS for facsimile. Othermembers supported the ITU-T as the leader in this field; it should be possible to attach an ETSI style sheet to a T.30Recommendation to make it an ETS. The TE Chair decided to delete the work item and let TE2 members come backwith proposals if they feel that further work is needed.

WG 2 ODA (OPEN DOCUMENT ARCHITECTURE)

prETS 300498-1, Open Document Architecture Communication Services Part 1 Basic Services, TE(179), wasapproved to go to PE.

TD 32 proposes a split of ODA activities by establishing two work items, one on simple ODA systems and oneon more complex systems and conformance testing.

A strong contribution was presented by Telefonica of Spain concerning the future work on ODA, TD 23 . Exceptfor K. Sambor (Austrian PTT), who strongly defended the continuation of work on ODA, the members of themeeting agreed with the Chair to stop any further work on ODA in ETSI, to remove any reference to ODA in theTE2 terms of reference, and to properly terminate the work which has been started. This decision was madeconsidering the lack of participation of members to ODA WG 2, considering the existence of de facto standards suchas those brought by Microsoft for Document Architecture, and considering the ongoing work in other standardbodies. The results of PT76 will be published as an ETR (European Technical Report). The revised work sheet onODA, as a result of those discussions, is given in TD 45 .

ETS 300025 Rev.1, PCI for ISDN, has two cases: Case A based upon the former PCI for ISDN and Case B basedupon CAPI (Common Application Programming Interface). Case A did not support the Microsoft Windows 95capability. This document was amended so that the edition that will go to PE defines that capability in both cases.Conformance testing to the above mentioned ETS will need to be established, and a call for experts will be made atthe end of the PE period (May 1996).



The ETR on General Architecture for PCI (down graded from an ETS) was running late and will be approved bycorrespondence.

pr ETS 300243-1, Edition 2, Programmable Communication Interface APPLI/COM for facsimile Group 3,facsimile Group 4, teletex, and telex services conformance testing, was running into some difficulties due to the factthat its description, done in TTCN (tree and tabular combined notation), had not been validated and at the same time,was not in machine readable format. Therefore, it could not go through a compiler. The PEX (Help Desk forConformance from ETSI Secretariat) is evaluating the work load to convert the existing TTCN description into amachine readable form. It was decided not to proceed with publication of the document until the matter is resolved,to ensure good quality of ETSI deliverables.

A TCR-TR (Technical Committee Report-Technical Report) was being prepared to identify the needs for extensionof the existing PCIs to a Generic PCI for Multimedia Application. This work item was running late. A resolutionmeeting was planned for December 1, 1995.

The work on a PCI for GSM is well under way. This work was done in SMG4 (Special Mobile Group 4) and wasreviewed by TE2 STC due to its expertise on PCIs. Two approaches were taken by SMG4: one PCI was based uponan extension of the AT Command Set, the other was based upon ETS 300325-1. The assumption was that nochange would be made to ETS 300325-1. TE2 also volunteered to establish the conformance testing of the newGSM PCI.

TE2 initialized liaisons to XTI , X-Open Transport Interface, and evaluated how XTI documents could become ETSIdocuments.

TE3, MESSAGE HANDLING SYSTEM

TD 12 contains the results of a CEN (Commission Europeenne de Normalisation) Project Team on the subject ofUser Requirements for Character Set Technology. The Chair reported that Internet sometimes operates with 7 bitsand that most National Alphabets in Europe require 8 bits and some require 16 bits. Proposals to use a 16 bitalphabet on 7 or 8 bit networks had been made but lead to rather complex algorithms. TD 22 is a letter from theETSI Director to all ETSI Chairs indicating the existence of the report on character set and asking those Chairs tocomment. TE will have to approve TD 12 on behalf of the whole ETSI.

The work sheets for TE3 are contained in TE(95)131 whenever not superseded by TE(95)170. A new work sheetwill need to be generated to cover Strategy for Messaging Management in view of recent US contributions to ITUproposing to base that management on Recommendations for MHS (X.400 Message Handling System)Management.

Interworking between Internet and MHS is also a subject that will require the attention of TE3 members in the verynear future.

TE4, AUDIOVISUAL AND VOICE TERMINALS

The TE4 Chair-elect, E. Fitzgerald (Consultant for Motorola), presented the TE4 report (TD 44).

TD 14 is a proposed procedure regarding prETS 300483, “TE ISDN Multipoint Communications for Audio VisualServices, Main Functionalities and Basic Requirements for Multipoint Control Unit (MCUs).” Having received nocomments during the PE, it was approved unchanged by TE to go to National Voting.

A number of documents were not received by TE in time to be approved. They will be approved by correspondence.They are:

• ETS 300481 - ISDN B-Channel Aggregation Procedures and Terminal Requirements (Vote)• I-ETS 300302-1 - ISDN Video Telephony Teleservices Part 1: Electro-acoustic characteristics for 3.1 kHz

bandwidth handset terminals (UAP)• TBR8/prA1 - ISDN Telephony 3.1 kHz Teleservice Attachment Requirements for Handset Terminals (See also

below.) (UAP)• I-ETS Video Telephone Reference Terminal - Data Communication Using In-Band Signaling Principles (PE)• I-ETS ISDN Audiovisual Services In-Band Signaling Testing Part 1: Test Suite and Test Purposes (PE)• I-ETS ISDN Audiovisual Services In-Band Signaling Testing Part 2: Abstract Test Suite and Partial PIXIT

Proforma (PE)• I-ETS ISDN Audiovisual Services In-Band Signaling Testing Part 3: PICS Proforma Specifications (PE)



The work on revision of TBR8 will start as soon as the TBR3 amendments have been completed. The Commissionasked for an improvement in the schedules for publication of revised TBR8 (handset telephony requirements overISDN).

The start of work on TBR38 on analog voice requirements (in conjunction with TBR37, voice access to PSTN) ledto the approval of a new work item and to an active discussion. The terminal directive speaks of requirements in the4g justified case. The debate centers on what is live voice. Some delegates felt that TBR was not needed; othersfelt that the scope of the TBR needed to be very well defined by ACTE and the Commission; the CEC represen-tative stated that what was really meant by live voice was the plain old telephone and the telephony service. TheCommission depends on ETSI to identify the essential requirements. The Commission also needs the document bymid-1997 at the latest. If ETSI cannot deliver, the Commission will use other means of getting those requirementsexpressed.

The technical report, “Video telephone reference terminal,” keeps getting delayed. The Editor was having difficultiesgathering the proper information. The TE Chair asked the TE4 Chair to either publish the document as is or tocancel the work item. This will be discussed at the next TE4 meeting.

TE4 is becoming the center of expertise within ETSI for speech encoding, decoding, and transcoding. This is aresult of the disbanding of TM5 and good working relations established with SMG.

Two new work items were approved in addition to the one mentioned above for TBR38:

• A new work item to update the VTQME report (Voice Transmission Quality Measurement on a network). Thiswork had been very well received by ITU-T and had also received quite a bit of interest from the US. It is a resultfrom picking up the work of TM5.

• A miscellaneous work item on transmission delays to contribute to the new TM3 work item.

The next regular meeting of TE4 will be in Sophia Antipolis, France, April 15-19, 1996.

TE5, TERMINAL ACCESS TO PUBLIC NETWORKS

TE5 Chair D. Maxey’s report is contained in TD 33 . The following documents were approved to go forward toNational Voting:

• ETS 300002 Ed 2: PSTN; Category II specification for 9600 or 4800 bits per second duplex modemsstandardized for use on the PSTN. (V.32)

• ETS 300114 Ed 2: PSTN; Category I and common Category II specification for modems standardized for use onthe PSTN.

• ETS 300116 Ed 2: PSTN; Category II specification for 1200 bits per second duplex modems standardized for useon the PSTN. (V.22)

• ETS 300117 Ed 2: PSTN; Category II specification for 2400 bits per second duplex modems standardized for useon the PSTN. (V.22bis)

• ETS 300118 Ed 2: PSTN; Category II specification for 1200 bits per second half duplex and 1200/75 bits persecond asymmetrical duplex modems standardized for use on the PSTN. (V.23)

• ETS 300492 Ed 1: PSTN; Category II specification for 14400, 12000, 9600, 7200 and 4800 bits per secondduplex modems standardized for use on the PSTN. (V.32bis) (new)

TBR2, Access to packet switched networks, was going to National Voting. It contains only physical layersrequirement. There was a question regarding what to do with layer 2 and layer 3 former TBR2 requirements.

The TCR-TR on results of monitoring frame relay activities in Europe was approved with the editorial changescontained in TD 35 (Motorola).

The following new work items were approved by TE with some discussions:

• Amendment to TBR3 Edition 1 at the request of ACTE (Approvals Committee for Terminal Equipment) whichdid not approve TBR3 as is (ISDN Basic Rate Access). The same will be done for TBR4 with BTC (BusinessTelecommunications Committee) involvement.

• Revision of Edition 1 of ETS 300115 for V.21 modems.• Work to start on voice access TBR. TBR is to be split into two parts: the network access part will be handled by

TE5 in the new work item; the voice quality part will be handled by TE4. This will result in two TBRs: TBR37and TBR38.



• Work to start on ISDN access to packet services for basic access and primary rate access. Some discussions tookplace. This work item was initially assigned to SPS5 and will be requested to be transferred back to TE5 where itbelongs. The European networks have not harmonized their ways of handling packets, and it will be up to theterminal to adapt to those different situations (Channel B, Channel D). Some terminal manufacturers feel thatTBR3 and 4 are sufficient.

• As soon as ACTE indicates so, TE5 will drop its work item on Edition 2 of TBR3.

Two resolution meetings were planned to sort out the 200 pages of comments received by the Editor of TBR21 (non-voice access to PSTN). The work on use of terminal in series/parallel is closely linked to the work on TBR21 andthe deliverable item, which will be an ETR, is highly dependent on the content of TBR21.

ETR on Common Interpretation of Essential Requirements in PSTN access had not reached consensus at the lastTE5 meeting. There was still a lot of confusion between the live voice essential requirements and the non-live voicerequirements.

Work on broadband access for terminals is starting, and a draft I-ETS should become available soon. TE5 decided notto work on a multimedia transport protocol proposed by Siemens and Austrian PTT at the last TE plenary. Theauthors of that proposition were invited to present it to other multimedia-related groups, possibly NA. TD 30contains the result of an action arising on B-ISDN at the June meeting. It concludes that the Siemens/PTT Austriacontribution was considered to be a proposal for a new work item for multimedia. Since this is not covered by themandate of the TE5 B-ISDN group, it was suggested that the contribution be allocated to a multimedia-related group.

TE5 continues to monitor EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility), safety, and protection works on behalf of TE andto monitor activities on advice of charging on PSTN. TE5 is involved in CLI, and an interim report was sent to theCommission on the matter of PSTN harmonized plug and socket connector.

The next meeting of TE5 will be in Sophia Antipolis, France, March 4-8, 1996.

TE6, DIRECTORY SYSTEMS

The TE6 Chair presented his STC activities which are held jointly with EWOS. The goal of TE6 is to keep ETSImembers informed about the activities taking place in the Standard arena in the field of X.500 Directories and tocheck that work is progressing on those items. TE6 will generate a TE permanent document that will not have aTCR-TR status but will contain all the information about Directory Taxonomy. TE(95)117 contains the TE6report. TE(95)156 and 157 updates the work item sheets. The question within ETSI is how to handle thosedocuments that are already approved by EWOS and processed by SGFS (Special Group for Functional Standards).The TE6 Chair will prepare an extract of those documents and will attach a multiple voting form to them. Any TEmember wishing to get the full document should request it from V-A Hoang (FT), Chair of TE6. The TE6 Chairannounced that his company does not wish him to continue as Chair. As a result, the future of TE6 is uncertain.

TE9, CARD TERMINALS

G. Raimann (Landis & Gyr - FEEI), TE9 Chair, presented his report. His STC is very dynamic, so dynamic that heproposed documents for publications of a work item which has not yet been accepted.

A work item, “Additional Telecom Features of IC (Integrated Circuit) card,” will be approved at next TE9 meeting.

A work item dealing with “synchronous cards” was modified to address the interoperability of synchronous pre-paidcards with terminal systems. A new work item, “Definition of identification of chip card for ETSI applications”(such as GSM, Tetra cards), was approved.

A work item on handling of other standards was classified in the miscellaneous MI work item. Two work itemsconsisting of defining the conformance testing of smart cards on the card side and on the terminal side were accepted.Those work items include the work of PT BUV which will start early 1996. The revised work items that will besent to TE for approval are contained in TD 48 .

A coordination committee of card experts was started within ETSI at the request of PAC (Program AdvisoryCommittee) and will try to harmonize the work going on in TE, SMG (Special Mobile Group), and DECT (DigitalEuropean Cordless Telephone).



CEC RELATED MATTERS

TE(95)127 gives the new mandates assigned by the Commission to ETSI. Those mandates that relate to TE workare detailed in TE(95)195, and they deal with the following items:

• 64 kbit/s leased line provided through an aggregation of nx64. There will be no new TBRs generated on thismandate. The existing 64 kbit/s G.703 leased line will suffice. A work item will be assigned to TE5.

• Calling Line Identification through PSTN and interworking with CLI carried by ISDN. Mandate to standardize.This may result in some slight modifications of the existing PSTN elements.

• Analog voice terminal TBRs (network access and voice access). (See TE4 nad TE5 reports above.)• General access to packet switching networks through ISDN basic and primary rate. (See TE5 report above.)• Transport IC cards for road toll connection. Some relation to TE9 work.• Develop standards on B-ISDN, ATM, WAN networks that will constitute the Trans European Network Backbone.

Establish periodic progress reports of the work and ensure market acceptance of that progress.• Develop standards on frame relay. (TE5 concluded that no new frame relay standards were needed.)• Develop sound, picture information coding. It is such a wide scope mandate that it requires better definition.• Define Software Interfaces to I.C.T.(Information Technology, Consumer Electronics and Telecommunications)

services (API/PCI).

The mandates for standards that directly affect access within the network such as HDSL/ADSL (High-rate DigitalSubscriber Loop/Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop) are assigned primarily to the TM (Transmission andMultiplexing) Committee.

STANDARDS MANAGEMENT

PT (PROJECT TEAM) MANAGEMENT

TD 29 is the status of the different project teams. There was no new project team asked for or allocated to TE.The EC (European Commission) has revised its way of funding PTs. PTs leading to a mandatory or regulatorystandard will be funded 100% by the Commission; others will be funded with a maximum of 50% of the PT cost,the remaining part being funded by ETSI. The following PTs are under TE responsibility for 1996:

• Conformance Testing ISDN Low Layers (26V)• Audio Text (36V)• Conformance Testing ISDN PCI (43V)• File Transfer ISDN (44V)• Test ISDN Video Phone (57V)• Test File Transfer over ISDN (59V)• API for File Transfer ISDN (73V)• Testing Intelligent Cards (BUV)• ODA Profiles part 2• Revision ETS 300080 (51)• ODA Service Profiles (61)• Multimedia (63)• PCI for Multimedia (74)• Multimedia End-to-End Protocols (75)

GENERAL

ETSI has decided to put in place a procedure to convert a PAS (Publicly Available Specification) into ETSIdocuments. Those PASs are produced by entities outside of ETSI (such as Fora). Experience will show how thisprocedure works. There has not yet been any voluntary request from those entities to proceed with that activity.PASs should not conflict with ongoing standards in ETSI. PASs should normally result in (I)-ETSs (InterimEuropean Telecommunications Standards). The term Technical Specifications does not exist in ETSI jargon and willneed to be changed.

The ETSI Secretariat’s goal is to make ETSI documents more readily available to its members. For example, aGSM CD-ROM will become available prior to the end of this year. This implies conversion of all ETSI documentsinto a single text processing format: Word for Windows 6.0. This format will itself be converted into PDF(Portable Document Format), similar to Post Script, in that the document sent to the requester is monolithic andcannot be changed or edited easily.



LIAISONS

LIAISON WITH EWOS

J. Pointer (BT), Vice Chair of ETSI TE, represented the TE Chair at EWOS (European Workshop on Open Systems)TA (Technical Assembly) and was part of the EWOS Evaluation team. EWOS was undergoing a detailed audit of itsoperations, and its future was not totally ensured. The report of EWOS TA 30 is contained in TE(95)176. EWOSwas considering evolution from standards making to procurement guidance to help customers make the right choices.This is similar to producing an EPHOS (European Procurement Handbook for Open Systems) guide. EWOS wasalso considering how to go along with the conclusions of SRC6 (Strategic Review Committee 6) on EuropeanInformation Infrastructure. Dr. W. Black, Director of EWOS, commented that some EGs (Expert Groups) of EWOSmay disappear rather rapidly now that X-Open has become a member of EWOS.

EWOS agreed to place on the Internet Web the GOSS (Guide to Open System Specifications).

LIAISON WITH SPS (S IGNALING PROTOCOLS AND SWITCHING)

The confusion continued on the topic of assigning HLCs (Higher Layer Compatibilities) for ISDN file transfersusing either FTAM or Eurofile transfers. It was understood that Euro-file transfer was to get a European HLC whileFTAM would get an ITU-T HLC. SPS5 liaison proposed to assign a European HLC for FTAM file transfer(TE(95)135).

LIAISON WITH NA NETWORK ASPECTS

TD 13 is a liaison statement from STC NA1 proposing to send the service description for both FTAM and Eurofiletransfers to ITU-T and asking ITU-T to assign two HLCs for each file transfer service.

ETSI ONP (OPEN NETWORK POLICY) 14

This meeting was attended by J. Pointer (BT), and was, in fact, of a wider scope than ONP. It checked the status ofthe different mandates assigned by the Commission to ETSI. The following items were discussed as reported inTE(95)174:

• CEC (European Committee for Standardization) invited ETSI to be represented at a hearing on “Universal Servicein a Competitive Environment.”

• Voice telephony directive completed its first reading. The final text will be approved by the end of 1995, andmember countries have 12 months to implement it.

• With respect to adaptation of the leased line directive, CEC will issue a new mandatory package for leased lines.• Access to the local loop mandate - The owner of the local loop is not necessarily the owner of the local switch

according to the commission. Some clarification will be brought in a second work order to be issued.• ISDN Primary Rate Access Connectors - One manufacturer had been found to manufacture such a connector based

on ISO 10073. Some interim measures need to be provided so that another manufacturer can be identified.• A new CLI (Calling Line Identification) mandate from the commission had been decided. It will be assigned to

STC TE5.• CEC was still waiting for a status report on harmonized plug and socket for PSTN. An interim report will be

produced by TE5 on this matter.

LIAISON WITH PAC

PAC has been giving priorities on standard activities and advising the ETSI TA accordingly. TE(95)187 containsthe 1995 PAC annual report. PAC advised the creation of the CEG, Integrated Circuit Card Expert Group.TE(95)188 is a report of that first experts group meeting. It is not yet clear from the TE9 Chair, G. Raimann, howCEG will work in relation with the existing ETSI structures: Can it create its own work item? Which parentcommittee does it report to? Can it generate its own standards? The TE Chair replied that CEG can create its ownwork item, that it should report to SMG, and that it cannot publish its own standards without the approval of itsparent committee and the experts of related groups. TE(95)190 gives the list of work items related to IC Cards. Itappeared that Europe had a lead position in that area.

PAC developed a systematic approach to ETSI Standards work using a key word approach. Key word #1 gives themain technological platform subject to standardization. Key word #2 represents the different expertise available inETSI TCs. TE(95)189 lists key words and the matrix of ETSI work items. Examples of key word #1 type includecordless, B-ISDN, and MHS/Directory. Examples of key word #2 type include architecture, conformance testing, in-



terface/protocols, and management aspects. The PAC then classified all work items of ETSI Data Base in a matrix.Out of 4834 work items, only 214 were not allocated using the proposed key word lists. It was stronglyrecommended by PAC to systematically refer to those key words in work items.

OTHER H IGHLIGHTS

Terms of reference of TE were modified to reflect the TE4 new responsibility in speech coding. TM terms ofreference were also modified in that respect.

A number of carry over items from previous discussions were presented. TD 50 lists the documents approved atthis TE Plenary. TD 51 is the modified work sheet for TBR8 alignment with TBR3. TD 47 is a proposedanswer from H. Layec, Chair of TE1, to TD 12 (CEN/TC304/PT01), the project team report. This document ledto a laborious discussion on the relative percentages of Videotex and Internet/PC/modem per European countries.TE1 rejected TD 12 , but TE was still asked to consolidate the replies of the different ETSI Committees to TD 12 .

Jacques Besseyre, AT&T France

ETSI TE PLENARY MEETING ROSTER, NOVEMBER 27 – DECEMBER 1, 1995, ANTWERP,BELGIUM

G. Lawrence, GPT Ltd., UK Chairman of ETSI TE Committee

AustriaLandis & Gyr - FEEI Gerhard RaimannAustrian PTT Klaus Sambor

Belg iumEWOS W. BlackEuropean Com. DG XIII / A2 Brian JenkinsonAlcatel Bell Willy Noppe

DenmarkTele Danmark Allan BuchananNational Telecom Agency Helmer Petersen

FinlandTelecom. Admin. Centre Antero Saarinen

FranceA T & T Jacques BesseyreAlcatel Business Systems Christine CordonnierFrance Telecom Jean-Michael GarnierFrance Telecom Van-Anh HoangFrance Telecom Hervé LatecPMC Dept ETSI Sec. Adrian Scrase

GermanyDeutsche Telekom AG Frank JürgensDeutsche Telekom AG Werner SimonSiemens AG Manfred Mall

HungaryHTC Telecom Hungary Gábor Nagygyorgy

I ta lyItalian PT Ministry Alberto GiuseppiniSTET Italtel Stefano MarianiItaltel SIT Alfonso Reda

Netherlands

KPN PTT Telekom BV Jan DietzNorway

Comlab Norwegian Telecom Jarl FjerdingbyNorwegian Telecom. Auth. Rasmus TrevlandTelenor A.S. Trond Ulseth

RussiaMinistry of P & T Serguei RakhmanovZNIIS - Central Sc. Res. Alexey Vasilyev

Inst. of Telecom.Spain

Dir. Gen’l de Telecom. Enrique BerrojalvizPalacio Comunicaciones

Telefónica Pablo CalvoSweden

Ericsson Bus. Networks AB Per DöfnäsTelia AB Mikael Forsström

SwitzerlandOFCOM Fed. Office for Com. Jacques BovaySwiss Telecom PTT Hansueli GerberSwiss Telecom PTT Markus Kämpfer

United Kingdom Professor SchnurrBritish Telecom Reg. Svcs David MaxeyBritish Telecom Reg. Svcs Joseph PointerGPT Ltd G. LawrenceGPT Ltd G. LovettMotorola LTD Edward FitzgeraldNEC Tec. Ltd Mark James

Telecom. Tech. Div.Racal - Datacom Ltd John Long



1996 Meeting Schedules Continued From Back CoverSubject to Change without Notice

T1P1 Jul 8 - 12 ---TR-45.2 Jul 8 - 12 Quebec City, PQTR-45.3 Jul 8 - 12 Quebec City, PQTR-45.5 Jul 15 - 19 Burlington, VTT1E1 Jul 22 - 26 ---TR-45.4 Jul 29-Aug 2 Walnut Creek, CATR-29 Aug 5 - 8 Sonoma, CATR-30 Aug 5 - 9 ---TR-45.2 Aug 5 - 9 Calgary, AlbertaTR-45.3 Aug 12 - 16 ---TR-45.5 Aug 12 - 16 ---T1A1 Sep 9 - 13 ---TR-41 Sep 9 - 13 Ottawa, OntarioTR-45.4 Sep 9 - 13 Montreal, QuebecTR-45.5 Sep 9 - 13 Williamsburg, VAT1S1 Sep 16 - 20 Monmouth, NJTR-45.2 Sep 16 - 20 Seattle or ChicagoTR-45.3 Sep 16 - 20 Seattle, WAT1P1 Oct 7 - 11 ---TR-45.2 Oct 7 - 11 Burlington, VTTR-45.4 Oct 7 - 11 Oakbrook, IL

TR-30 Oct 14 - 18 ---TR-45.3 Oct 14 - 18 Austin, TXTR-45.5 Oct 14 - 18 Eastsound, WAITU-R TG 8/1 Oct 15 - 25 GenevaITU-R WP 8A Oct 29-Nov7 GenevaT1E1 Nov 11 - 15 ---TR-29 Nov 4 - 7 ---TR-45.2 Nov 11 - 15 CO Springs, COTR-45.5 Nov 11 - 15 Newport Beach, CAT1A1 Nov 18 - 22 ---TR-45.4 Nov 18 - 22 El Paso, TXTR-45.3 Nov 18 - 22 Dallas, TXETSI TE Nov 25 - 29 Dublin, IrelandTR-30 Dec 2 - 6 San Antonio, TXTR-41 Dec 9 - 13 ---TR-45.2 Dec 9 - 13 St. Pete’s Bch, FLTR-45.4 Dec 9 - 13 St. Pete’s Bch, FLTR-45.5 Dec 9 - 13 Kihei, HITR-45.3 Dec 16 - 20 Cancun, Mexico

The next issue of Communications Standards Review – Telecommunications (Vol. 7 #1) is scheduled forJanuary–February 1996.

Communications Standards Reviewregularly covers the following committee meetings:

CSR-R CSR-TTIA TR-41.6 TIA TR-29

TR-45 TR-30TR-46 TR-41

ITU-R: SG 8A ITU T: SG 8SG 14SG 15 / 1 and 15 / 2

ETSI: TE Plenary



ACRONYM GLOSSARY

AAL ATM Adaptive LayerACTE Approvals Committee for Terminal EquipmentADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop (Line)ARQ Automatic Repeat RequestATM Asynchronous Transfer ModeB-ISDN Broadband ISDNBAS Bit-rate Allocation SignalCBR Constant Bit RateCCR Comparison Category RatingCD Committee DraftCEC European Committee for StandardizationCLI Calling Line IdentificationCME Circuit Multiplication EquipmentCNG Comfort Noise GeneratorCIF Common Intermediate FormatCSS Composite Source SignalDCE Digital Cellular EquipmentDCME Digital Circuit Multiplication EquipmentDECT Digital European Cordless TelephoneDoD Department of Defense (U.S.)DSM-CC Digital Storage Media - Command and ControlDSP Digital Signal ProcessingDSVD Digital SVDDTE Data Terminal EquipmentDTMF Dual Tone Multi FrequencyEREC Error Resiliant Entropy Code/Error Robust Entropy CodeETR European Technical ReportEWOS Europena Workshop on Open SystemsFCC Federal Communications Commission (U.S.)FDM Frequency Division MultiplexingFEC Forward Error CorrectorFPLMTS Future Public Land Mobile Telephone SystemsFTAM File Transfer, Access and ManagementGSM Global System for Mobile Communications (formerly Groupe Speciale Mobile)GSTN General Switched Telephone Network (e.g., PSTN)HDLC High Level Data Link ControlHLC Higher Layer CompatibilityHRD Hypothetical Reference DecoderIRS Intermediate Reference SystemISDN Integrated Services Digital NetworkLAN Local Area NetworkLAPM Link Access Protocol Modem (V.42)LBC Low Bit -rate CoderLDCELP Low Delay CELPMCU Multi-point Control UnitME Mobile EquipmentMFP Multi-Function PeripheralMFPI Multif-Function Peripheral InterfaceMHEG Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts GroupMIPS Million Instructions Per SecondMLC Multiple Logical ChannelMLP Multi-Layer ProtocolMMDS Multichannel Multipoint Distribution ServiceMMG Multimedia Management Group (ETSI)MOPS Million Operations Per SecondMS Mode SelectMSD Master Slave DeterminationMUX MultiplexerNA Network AspectsNATO North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNISDN Narrowband ISDNODA Open Document Architecture



ONP Open Network PolicyPB Personal BasePDU Protocol Data UnitPE Public Inquiry (ETSI)PSC Picture Start CodePSTN Public Switched Telephone NetworkQCIF Quarter CIFREVAL Procedure for Evaluation of Radio Technologies for FPLMTSROM Read Only MemorySAVD Simultaneous or Alternating Voice DataSCF Supervisory and Control FunctionSDL Specification and Description LanguageSID Silence Insertion DescriptorSLER Signal to Listener Echo RatioSMG Special Mobile GroupSNR Signal to Noise RatioSOVA Soft Output Viterbi AlgorithmSQEG Speech Quality Expert GroupSRC Strategic Review Committee (ETSI)SRTS Synchronous Residual Time StampSTC Sub-Technical Committee (ETSI)STE Secure Terminal EquipmentSVD Simultaneous Voice DataTBR Technical Basis for RegulationTCH Transparent Circuit HandlingTCON Telenor Research’s error Concealment DecoderTCR-TR Technical Committee Report – Technical ReportTDF Transportable Document FormatTE Terminal Equipment (ETSI Committee)TMN Telecommunications Management NetworkTSB Telecommunications Standardization Board (ITU)TSB Telecommunication Systems Bulletin (TIA)UAP Unified Accelerated ProcedureUEP Unequal Error ProtectionUSB Universal Serial BusUIH Unnumbered Information with Header checkVAD Voice Activity DetectorVM Verification ModelWAN Wide Area NetworkXOR Exclusive OR



1996 MEETING SCHEDULES AS OF DECEMBER 21, 1995Subject to Change without Notice

V.34 Rapp Jan 8 - 10 Clearwater, FLTR-45.4 Jan 8 - 12 Walnut Creek, CATR-45.5 Jan 8 - 12 San Diego, CASG 15 LBC Jan 9 - 12 San Jose, CATR-45.2 Jan 11 Arlington, TXT1P1 Jan 15 - 20 Pleasanton, CATR-29 Jan 15 - 18 San Antonio, TXTR-45 Jan 15 - 18 Pleasanton, CATR-45.2 Jan 15 - 19 Orlando, FLT1E1 Jan 22 - 26 Orange, CATR-45.3 Jan 22 - 26 Vancouver, BCG.dsvd Rapp Jan 24 - 26 Costa Mesa, CATR-30 Feb 5 - 9 Honolulu, HISG 8 Feb 6 - 15 GenevaTR-45.2 Feb 12 - 16 New Orleans, LATR-45.3 Feb 12 - 16 New Orleans, LATR-45.4 Feb 12 - 16 Dallas, TXTR-45.5 Feb 12 - 16 Birmingham, ALITU GII TF Feb 17-19 GenevaSG 15 Rapp Feb 26 - 29 Rome, ItalyTR-41 Mar 4 - 8 Fort Meyers, FLTR-45.2 Mar 11 - 15 Santa Barbara, CATR-45.5 Mar 11 - 15 Santa Barbara, CAT1A1 Mar 18 - 22 Orlando, FLTR-45.3 Mar 18 - 22 ---TR-45.4 Mar 18 - 22 Hilton Head, SCSG 14 Mar 19 -27 Geneva

SG 15 Rapp Mar 19 - 26 FranceITU-R TG 8/1 Apr 15 - 26 GermanyT1P1 Apr 15 - 19 ---TR-30 Apr 15 - 19 ---TR-45.2 Apr 15 - 19 Austin, TXTR-45.4 Apr 15 - 19 Austin, TXTR-45.5 Apr 15 - 19 ---T1E1 Apr 22 - 26 RTP, NCTR-45.3 Apr 22 - 26 Atlanta, GASG 15 LBC Apr 23 - 26 Dallas, TXTR-45.5 May 6 - 10 San Francisco, CATR-29 May 13 - 16 Middletown, NJTR-45.2 May 13 - 17 Monterey, CATR-45.3 May 20 - 24 Calgary, AlbTR-45.4 May 20 - 24 Chicago, ILSG 15 May 28-Jun 7 GenevaTR-30 Jun 3 - 7 ---TR-41 Jun 3 - 7 Rosemont, ILETSI TE Jun 10 - 14 Madrid, SpainTR-45.2 Jun 10 - 14 Vancouver or

ChicagoTR-45.5 Jun 10 - 14 Vancouver or

ChicagoT1A1 Jun 17 - 21 ---TR-45.3 Jun 17 - 21 Toronto, OntarioTR-45.4 Jun 24 - 28 Durango, CO

1996 Meeting Schedule Continued on page 60

Visit the CSR Web Page:http://www.csrstds.com

The Web Pages include an updated Telecom Acronym Glossary, sample reports from CSR-T and CSR-R, data sheetson all CSR technical journals, updated meeting schedules (as above), and background material on telecom standardsand CSR (the company).

Communications Standards Review –Telecommunications (ISSN 1081-4655) is published 6 - 8 timesper year, within days after the latest, related standards meetings. Editor: Elaine J. Baskin, Ph.D. Technical Editor:Ken Krechmer. Copyright © 1995, Communications Standards Review. All rights reserved. Copying of individualarticles for distribution within an organization is permitted. Subscriptions: $595.00 per year worldwide. Discountsfor additional subscriptions are available. Submit articles for consideration to: Communications Standards Review,757 Greer Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303-3024 U.S.A. Tel: +1-415-856-9018. Fax: +1-415-856-6591. Internet:[email protected]. CIS: 72540,113. WWW: http://www.csrstds.com. 16908