ITU Selects Speech Compression Technology For Proposed Multimedia Visual Telephony Standard; Key to Videophones and Desktop Conferencing Over Public Telephone Networks

Business Wire, March 16, 1995

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 1995--DSP Group Inc. (NASDAQ:DSPG), France Telecom, AudioCodes Ltd., and Universite de Sherbrooke announced today that the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has selected a speech compression technology for its future standard for multimedia visual telephony over the public telephone network. The selected compression technology is based on an advanced version of TrueSpeech technology by DSP Group's corporate partner AudioCodes Ltd. (Israel) and DSP Group Inc. (California), combined with the Technology ACELP coding technology of Universite de Sherbrooke (Canada) and related technology by France Telecom (France).

This new speech compression technology, to be designated as G.723 by the ITU, will enable visual telephony over the public telephone network, among a variety of other teleconferencing applications. The selected technology will operate at data rates as low as 6.3 and 5.3 kilobits per second (Kbps) producing a substantial improvement in compression ratios over existing ITU standards -- while maintaining high speech quality. The high quality speech is possible because of significant advances in the digital speech compression introduced by the parties and by advances in digital signal processing technologies.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is an international standards organization chartered by the United Nations to formulate worldwide communications standards. The members represent nearly every nation in the world, with delegates typically from the largest Telecommunication service providers and equipment manufacturers in those member countries. During the last 18 months the `speech experts group' of ITU Study Group 15, with representatives from such industry leaders as AT&T, British Telecom, NTT, Siemens and others have evaluated technologies from leading technical labs throughout the world. As a result of their findings, the experts group recommended approval of this compression technology based on the advanced version of TrueSpeech and ACELP Coding techniques by the parties.

Speech compressed by the newly selected technology takes only 20 percent of the communication capacity, or bandwidth, of today's high-speed modems, which can communicate as high as 28.8 kilobits per second (Kbps). In a videophone, for example, which is connected to a regular phone line, this new standard would allow the remaining bandwidth to be used for transmitting video and other digital data at the same time as digital speech.

"We anticipate that this digital speech compression standard will find immediate application in multiple conferencing products," said Will Strauss, market analyst and president of Forward Concepts, located in Tempe, Arizona. "High quality speech is essential when conversations and data are being exchanged simultaneously -- as they would be, for example, with a conferencing system," explained Strauss. Strauss projects that the 400 million dollar large system teleconferencing business in 1994 will be upstaged by a desktop market projected to be seven billion dollars in 1997.

"This is a major milestone for TrueSpeech technology," said Eli Porat, president and CEO of DSP Group. "We believe the thorough selection process by the ITU is essential for establishing worldwide communication standards. Multi-party and international collaboration, as demonstrated here, is key to producing the most advanced compression standards."

"France Telecom/CNET is pleased to cooperate with Universite de Sherbrooke, DSP Group and AudioCodes in producing this new leading edge speech technology," said Michel Feneyrol, director of France Telecom/CNET. "We are optimistic that this decision by the ITU is not only in the best interest of our companies, but also in the best interest of international operability of Telecommunications networks and new services developments."

"The new speech compression technology, MP-MLQ based, and featuring data rates as low as 6.3 and 5.3 Kbps, is the first to provide a high quality, very low bit rate alternative to existing standards, such as ADPCM (32 Kbps) and LD-CELP (16 Kbps)," said Shabtai Adlersberg, president of AudioCodes Ltd., a key contributor to the development of this new technology.

Jean-Pierre Adoul, from Universite de Sherbrooke stated that, "This state-of-the-art technology should enable the emergence of exciting new low-cost conferencing applications that, we trust, will truly enhance communications between people."

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Note to Editors: TrueSpeech is a registered trademark of DSP Group Inc. Technology ACELP is a trademark of Universite de Sherbrooke. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective companies.

This announcement is being jointly released by AudioCodes Ltd., DSP Group Inc., France Telecom and Universite de Sherbrooke.

CONTACT: DSP Group

Beverly Rindfleisch, 408/986-4475

France Telecom/CNET

Sylvie Castro, 33/45 29 51 56

AudioCodes

Zeev Pritzker, 972/3 5333 107

Universite de Sherbrooke