DSP Group adds four to TrueSpeech licensing

Electronic News, April 15, 1996

Santa Clara, Calif.--The DSP Group licensed its TrueSpeech G.723 speech compression technology to a group of Internet service providers, coming on the heels of an International Telecommunications Union (ITU) decision to adopt TrueSpeech as an industry standard.

NEC, VDOnet, NetSpeak and Canadian service provider Telescape Communications join existing licensees Microsoft, Intel, Siemens, Creative Labs, Cirrus Logic and nearly a dozen other companies who have integrated the compression standard onto their platforms, according to DSP Group. Built into Windows 95 and NT operating systems, the technology allows users to record, play back, store, E-mail and post audio files on the Internet. A TrueSpeech Internet Encoder likewise enables end-users to add audio to their web sites without additional server software.

The four newest licensees paid an undisclosed up-front fee for the technology license and will also pay DSP Group a per-unit royalty.

According to the agreements, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Internet communications service provider VDOnet, which markets its VDOLive technology for desktop video broadcasting and videoconferencing applications over the Internet, POTS and private network systems, will integrate TrueSpeech into its suite of Internet on-demand audio/video products.

Netspeak, of Boca Raton, Fla., will use TrueSpeech version 8.5kilobits/second in its WebPhone and Business WebPhone Internet telephone software, enabling real-time, full duplex communication over the Internet, LANs and WANs. Vancouver, British Columbia-based Telescape also plans to use the 8.5kps version in its TS Intercom Internet telephone software. NEC has licensed the entire suite of TrueSpeech technology, including TrueSpeech 8.5kps, 6.3/5.3kps and 4.8kps.

TrueSpeech G.723, after a year-long battery of tests, was recently incorporated into the ITU H.323 standard for Internet communications, and is claimed to be the only speech coder to operate on a 14.4-kilobit/second modem. The ITU has also adopted the compression technology as the specification under the committee's ITU H.324 standard for videoconferencing and telephony over regular telephone lines.

According to DSP Group, TrueSpeech is based on an advanced algorithm that results in improved voice quality, even in the harsh environment of high compression. Operating at 6.3k/s and 5.3k/s with respective compression rates of 20:1 and 24:1, TrueSpeech also includes a silence compression feature the company claims compresses out the pauses between spoken words and lowers rates to less than 3.7k/s. Silence compression is expected to be included as an annex to the G.723 specification in the coming months.

"We hope (TrueSpeech) will spark a new wave of adoption," said John Shea, DSP Group's director of TrueSpeech and New Products. "What happens now that (the specification) has been adopted is that the source code will be distributed openly. We know of several companies working on porting efforts who will complete those in the very near term."