Eyeball Any-Bandwidth Technology. Guaranteeing the best possible VoIP and video quality over any Internet connection and on any device

Transcription

1 Guaranteeing the best possible VoIP and video quality over any Internet connection and on any device Copyright 2005

2 VoIP and Video Telephony Voice over IP (VoIP) and video telephony, delivered over PCs, via set-top boxes, as part of a online community, from a videophone or on mobile devices is becoming increasingly more commonplace, with deployments and usage more than doubling each year. The VoIP market is experiencing phenomenal growth, with 150 million VoIP lines conservatively estimated to be in place by 2010 in the US alone. Sustained revenue and subscriber growth of VoIP and video telephony is limited, however, both in total and for individual service providers, by lower than acceptable service quality. The ability to deliver the highest voice and video quality across a network or subscriber base, under dynamically changing network conditions, and given the heterogeneous mix of subscriber access devices (including CPU, codec, Internet connection type and capacity), is the key determinant of service quality. Eyeball Networks patented Any-Bandwidth Technology guarantees every subscriber the best possible voice and video quality over any Internet connection and on any device every time. Key features of : Dynamically optimizes performance for every subscriber, connection type and capacity Continuously monitors available bandwidth and CPU resources to ensure maximum quality Automatically determines the appropriate encoding and decoding scheme and parameters for optimum quality Offers the highest level of resilience against Internet and wireless packet loss and jitter by limiting packets on-the-fly A crucial differentiator of the Any-Bandwidth Technology, a core function of the Eyeball SDK (licensed software development kit), is that voice and video quality is individually optimized, end-to-end, for each endpoint according to the available resources. Endpoints connecting via T1 lines, cable or DSL modems, for example, can have video calls with high frame rate, while endpoints connecting via Wi-Fi or even dial-up can send or receive voice and video at a lower rate suitable to their capabilities. Thus, any endpoint, any connection, under real-world conditions, both sends and receives the highest available quality. Competitive offerings, on the other hand, force subscribers to accept a normalized Internet connection type and speed, and then try to use this information without any consideration of actual end-to-end bandwidth between two callers, or their system CPU, changing application needs or other resource capacities. Overcoming Service Quality Challenge VoIP reliability and clarity are important factors limiting the widespread adoption of VoIP 1 service. Impacts to quality and reliability include end-to-end network bandwidth, equipment and processing power used by (all) subscribers, latency, jitter and packet loss (particularly when 1 Study by Keynote Systems, July 12, Page 2

3 using clogged networks, such as during peak traffic periods). Each has a direct negative impact on revenue and strategic service roll-out plans, including: Diminished subscriber base of any VoIP or video telephony service Wasted network resources that are not being fully utilized by potential subscribers Service churn as subscribers drop out from the service due to service quality Increases in service support costs Limited ability to sustain acceptable levels of service margins, which are commonly based on quality ( premium ) service Restrictions on the ability to offer differentiated service levels across a subscriber base or targeted group Figure 1: Eyeball s patented Any-Bandwidth Technology ensures every subscriber from every connection receives the best available voice and video quality every time. It is sometimes argued that eventually all users of the Internet will have enough bandwidth, and this issue will no longer be a problem. Adding more bandwidth to the equation is not a cure-all. Even for those service providers that have near-complete control of their networks, and can ensure the highest network quality and reliability between their subscribers and servers, Any- Bandwidth Technology remains crucial. Subscribers will have variations in endpoint type, processing speeds and operating systems, and will connect using different types of access connections such as DSL, cable, T1, Wi-Fi, WiMAX and cellular links. Other factors must also be considered. Subscribers may share total bandwidth with other applications and computers within the household. They will also certainly want to place off-net calls (calls terminating on a third-party provider s network) where the caller and the callee are n- number of hops apart, and data transfer may go through some congested routers causing unpredictable end-to-end bandwidth, packet loss and jitter. Page 3

4 Competitive offerings, as noted, typically assign a specific quality level at the beginning of each call, based on user input or auto-detection of connection type and attempt to maintain that rate throughout the call, regardless of dynamic behavior of the network connections, load and resource availability at the endpoints. Thus, while a few subscribers may receive acceptable quality some of the time, most subscribers receive call quality far lower than their acceptable measure. With Any-Bandwidth Technology, all subscribers are guaranteed to receive the best possible voice and video quality given their resources and the current (changing) state of their network connections. Consider a typical video call, when resources are abundant. Endpoints receive full-motion and full-quality video (e.g. VGA resolution (640x480 pixels) at 30 frames/sec). However, in the case of limited network bandwidth and/or CPU power, endpoints receive optimally reduced video (e.g. QCIF resolution (176x144 pixels) at 8 frames/sec) without experiencing any blackouts, noticeable delays, or blocking artifacts. Competing solutions, however, continue sending voice and video at non-sustainable rates causing network congestion and packet loss, and resulting in bad overall subscriber experience. Other unique benefits of Any-Bandwidth Technology include: Works with all standard voice and video codecs Operates on standard transport system, including RTP and UDP Optimizes quality at the endpoints to ensure peer-to-peer scalability Any-Bandwidth Technology dynamically determines which (of the many) available codecs are best for a particular VoIP and video call or conference. Equally important, send/receive quality adjustments are made at the endpoints. This method does not depend on a centralized media server, and supports peer-to-peer growth and scalability without degradation of service quality. Figure 2: Eyeball s patented Any-Bandwidth Technology is a core feature of the Eyeball SDK (shown above) and works with all standard codecs. Page 4

5 Any-Bandwidth Technology in Action The purpose of service quality adaptation is to achieve the best possible voice and video quality and to effectively share limited network and hardware resources among all participants. With Any-Bandwidth Technology, voice and video quality automatically and rapidly adapts to any changes in network conditions including throughput, packet loss and jitter, and available endpoint resources including CPU capacity. is an integral part of Eyeball SDK design and it works in close cooperation with other SDK components (see figure 2). In a voice and video call, it works using two primary adaptation methods: 1. Quality Level Adaptation is responsible for macro quality changes and takes place at periodic intervals (such as every 20 seconds, this is dynamically computed within the algorithm). 2. Window Size Adaptation is responsible for micro quality changes in response to realtime fluctuations in network conditions. Together, these two methods ensure effective maximization of end-to-end throughput while simultaneously preventing network flooding and other associated voice/video distortions. The main concepts and mechanisms of are described below. 1. Quality Profiles and Levels Each endpoint chooses one of the following 3 quality profiles: Profile 0: High frame rate Profile 1: Standard Profile 2: High picture quality Each profile consists of 10 quality levels. Each quality level defines a set of values that denote a certain level of quality for voice and video. The choice of quality profile may potentially be exposed as a preference setting for subscribers, or it may be chosen by the client application depending on the application type. 2. Quality Adaptation Factors The quality level is dynamically adjusted by the following four factors: Sending power: frame rate encoded * 100 / maximum frame rate to be encoded Capture power: frame rate captured * 100 / maximum frame rate to be encoded Loss rate: packets lost in the receiver side * 100 / total packets expected to be received CPU usage: percentage of CPU currently used Maximum frame rate is determined by the current quality level, while frame rate encoded is controlled by the window size adaptation. A higher sending power indicates that there is still available bandwidth to increase the quality level. Page 5

6 Capture power is a key factor to ensure CPU usage is balanced between sender and receiver sides. If most of the CPU is consumed to decode and playback voice and video, some cameras may fail to produce specified capture rate. 3. Quality Adaptation Status Quality adaptation status is obtained by a comprehensive analysis of the above factors collected from all participants in a voice/video call or conference. The status of a call is computed to be one of the following three: Good (indicating more resources are available to use) Acceptable Bad (indicating that resources are oversubscribed) Quality level can only be increased if the overall adaptation status is good, and must be decreased if the status is bad. Figure 3: Any-Bandwidth Technology core components and method. 4. Controller and Follower Model Dynamic quality adaptation in Any-Bandwidth Technology uses a controller-follower model of implementation where one party (the session initiator, caller or conference creator) takes the role of controller and all the other parties work as followers. Each follower monitors the quality adaptation factors, and sends periodic reports to the controller. The controller collects and processes these reports, runs an adaptation algorithm to determine the overall quality and resource status, decide when and how to change quality levels if any, and communicate adaptation decisions back to the followers to implement this at their end in cooperation with the local voice and video sender and receiver components. Quality adaptation information is exchanged among participants using RTCP packet format. Page 6

7 5. Window Size Adaptation The window size adaptation (WSA) implements a flow control algorithm for UDP/RTP data packets. Here the idea is to control the number of packets on the fly (sent but not received yet) which is conceptually similar to TCP sliding window algorithm to maximize throughput and avoid network congestion. The size of the window in WSA is adjusted such that it meets the following three requirements: high throughput by sending more packets low network delay by reducing queue time in the buffer avoid or minimize network packet loss due to network buffer overflow WSA uses acknowledgement packets to monitor dynamic network conditions. WSA does not change the quality level of a session, it works within the confines of quality level parameters (such as maximum frame rate and bitrate) set by the controller-follower model. If the effective network bandwidth decreases while in a quality level, WSA skips encoding some video frames to adapt. Conclusion To succeed, a VoIP and video telephony service must consistently deliver the highest voice and video quality across all connections and devices. Primary features of any technology that can ensure such optimal quality are: Achieves the highest possible throughput Achieves low latency and adapt for network jitter Minimizes packet loss and conceals effect of packet loss Performs well on a wide variety of access links Delivers the highest quality against fluctuation in network conditions Delivers the highest quality across heterogeneous endpoints and CPUs Working across all standard codecs, dynamically optimizes frame rate, picture quality and voice quality based on network and CPU capacity to consistently produce the best possible service quality for each endpoint, for each call. Consumers and businesses are finding new ways to utilize voice and video telephony to improve their daily activities. Thanks to Eyeball Networks award-winning technologies and solutions, VoIP and video telephony services can be rapidly rolled-out across any subscriber base, or deployed within lucrative niches, including business conferencing, online gaming, video , enhanced VoIP and surveillance, among others. With Eyeball s exclusive patented Any- Bandwidth Technology as well as our Any-Firewall Technology 2, voice and video telephony services can be delivered with guaranteed quality across any connection type (cable, DSL, Wi- Fi, dial-up), capacity, and firewall. 2 See also Any-Firewall Technology whitepaper at Page 7

8 Eyeball s standards-based solutions can be found in softphones, PC clients, web portals, in settop boxes, PocketPCs, videophones and more each delivering the best available voice and video service quality and the industry s highest call completion rate. Not surprisingly, in a recent independent laboratory test 3, comparing an Eyeball Soft Client and SDK against other popular video telephony and instant messaging solutions, under real-world conditions, only Eyeball received an overall Excellent rating for quality. AIM Yahoo! GIPS Skype Xten MSN Eyeball Echo Feedback Distortion Choppiness Overall Table 1: Only Eyeball received an Excellent score in independent testing. Standards and Codecs Eyeball Networks innovative solutions build on the latest standards for communication protocols and voice and video codecs. Our solutions incorporate the following standards and codecs: and port options) for completion of voice and video calls. RFC 3261 (SIP: Session Initiation Protocol) RFC 3665 (SIP Basic Call Flow) RFC 2617 (HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication) [for SIP] RFC 3428 (SIP Extension for Instant Messaging) RFC 3263 (Locating SIP Servers) RFC 2327 (SDP: Session Description Protocol) RFC 2787 (DNS SRV) RFC 2190 (RTP Payload for H.263 Video Streams) RFC 3264 (Offer/Answer Model with SDP) RFC 3550 (RTP Protocol for Real-Time Applications) RFC 2833 (RTP Payload for DTMF Digits, Signals) RFC 3489 (STUN - Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol Through Network Address Translators) RFC 3920 (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Core) RFC 3921 (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence) Voice codecs: G.711, G.729A, GSM 6.10, ilbc, Speex, Speex-wb Video codecs: H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 and EyeStream 3 Contact Eyeball at sales@eyeball.com or for additional information on these tests and how they were conducted and verified. Page 8

9 About Eyeball Networks Eyeball Networks is a world leader in VoIP and video telephony software for service providers and device manufacturers. Eyeball's patented Any-Bandwidth Technology and Any-Firewall Technology guarantee the best possible voice and video quality for every subscriber, over any Internet connection, across any firewall, and on any device. Eyeball's endpoint and server software supports more than 6 million VoIP and video telephony subscribers and 10 billion call minutes for more than 100 service providers in North America, Europe and Asia. Our customers include many of the world's largest Internet and VoIP service providers, and device and chipset manufacturers. Founded in 2000, Eyeball Networks is a privately-held company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Worldwide Offices Corporate Headquarters Eyeball Networks Inc Park Royal West Vancouver, B.C. V7T 1A2 Phone: Fax: USA th Street New York, NY Phone: Japan Tamachi East , Shibaura 3-chome, Minato-ku Tokyo Phone: +81 (3) Fax: +81 (3) United Kingdom 1A Orton Lane Wombourne Wolverhampton WV5 9AN Phone: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Contact Eyeball Networks today for a live demonstration of our soft phones and servers. See and hear how Eyeball s patented Any-Bandwidth Technology and Any-Firewall Technology guarantees your subscribers the best possible audio and video quality anywhere, any time. Sales: sales@eyeball.com Support: techsupport@eyeball.com Page 9