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"Killer patent" drives Lucent's Accelerate? Solutions for next-generation VoIP communications.

June 23, 2004 ? The idea behind Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is a simple one: send packets of digitized voice as another form of data over IP networks. However, the reality is not so simple. Data transmission is "best effort," routing different kinds of traffic over the Internet by available resources, resending lost packets when necessary to assemble a complete "message" at the end point. When voice packets are delayed the result is choppy, unacceptable quality that interferes with clear conversations. Conventional circuit-switched, public switched telephone network trunking avoids this problem by sending voice signals from end point to end point without interruption.

Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP, which Bell Labs helped develop, makes IP conversations possible. It's a global, standards-based IP telephony signaling protocol that helps the network control how voice calls are routed for the length of a "session." But SIP does not address the "best effort" quality problem. As traffic increases, network links can become overburdened, and call quality drops. Simply adding more capacity won't solve the problem, because network traffic is so dynamic, adjusting capacity by conventional methods is impossible.

A quality breakthrough from Bell Labs
To eliminate VoIP quality degradation, Bell Labs developed a software-based connection resource manager, or CRM, that solves this congestion problem. The CRM acts as a traffic cop that manages network demand. It creates virtual trunk groups over which information can flow between senders and receivers without interruption. By limiting the number of users who can gain access to each virtual channel, the CRM prevents congestion and guarantees quality of service (QoS) for IP conversations.

One of MIT's five killer patents
Bell Labs' CRM provides the missing piece needed to complete the VoIP puzzle. Its fundamental importance is underscored by no less an authority than MIT's Technology Review, which named it one of its "Five Killer Patents" in its May 2004 issue. The patent, U.S. No. 6,529,499, is actually the 30,000 patent issued to Bell Labs since its founding in 1925. It adds to a remarkable history that includes the invention of the transistor and no less than six Nobel Prizes in Physics.

Bell Labs researchers (from left), On-Ching Yue, Enrique Hernandez-Valencia, Bharat Doshi, and Y.T. Wang, earned Bell Labs' 30,000th patent with their invention of mechanisms to guarantee application Quality of Service for Internet Protocol networks. MIT?s Technology Review May 2004 issue also named it one of its ?Five Killer Patents" of the past year.

Bell Labs researchers Yung-Terng (Y.T.) Wang and Enrique Hernandez-Valencia, along with former colleagues Bharat Doshi, Kotikalapudi Sriram and On-Ching Yue, received this patent for their research. Since filing for the patent in September 1998, the Bell Labs inventors have leveraged the capabilities of Internet standards to evolve this technique. Additionally, they are working closely with Lucent's business units to build this capability into Lucent's Accelerate? portfolio of VoIP solutions. Said Wang, "It's one thing to support VoIP applications for a few hundred thousand subscribers. It's quite another if you want to support tens of millions or more."

Taking the technology to market with Accelerate Solutions
In addition to the accolades this technology is receiving in the press, Lucent is strengthening its Accelerate portfolio by agreeing to acquire Telica, a provider of VoIP communications systems for next-generation networks. This is exciting news for Lucent's customers who are looking for help in delivering services over IP networks.

The addition of Telica to the Lucent family will enhance its ability to bridge next-generation and legacy networks for wireline and wireless service providers. This gives Lucent a very effective way to enhance and speed its VoIP offers to market and allows service providers to offer their customers new converged voice and data applications such as unified communications, multimedia messaging, location-based services, IP Centrex, and voice and data virtual private networks.