All, I would like to request agenda time inside the DISPATCH meeting to propose the formation of a new working group to define a Proposed Standard wideband audio codec. The text of the proposal is below. Comments, questions, and suggestions welcomed. Regards, Jason Internet Wideband Audio Codec (IWAC) Mailing Lists: TBD Chairs: TBD Area Directorate: Real Time Applications (RAI) Purpose: This new working group would be chartered with the purpose of collecting expertise within the IETF in order to review the design of audio codecs specifically for use with the Internet. Unlike other SDOs, these codecs would be optimized for use on the Internet, and as much as possible choose technology that does not require paying patent royalties. The Internet Low Bit Rate Codec (iLBC) work was done in AVT but it was felt that subsequent work should not be done in the AVT working group. This new working group will have as its primary purpose the standardization of a multi-purpose audio codec that can be used in various situations on the Internet. Some of the proposed Internet-specific requirements include: * scalable and adaptive bit rate; * various sampling rate profiles from narrow-band to super-wideband; * scalable complexity; * low latency; and * resilience to packet loss. There are a number of wide-band capable codecs defined by other SDOs. For instance, G.722 is seeing adoption in Enterprise applications since it is relatively simple and low-cost to deploy. However, it has a high, fixed bitrate and is not appropriate for mobile applications where spectrum efficiency is important or in consumer applications where available bandwidth is fluctuating or limited. G.722.2 (AMR-wideband) has been adopted by the 3GPP as a wideband standard for mobile applications. G.722.2 is relatively high cost due to patent royalties and is seeing minimal deployments outside of mobile handsets making it challenging to create wideband experiences on Internet-capable mobile devices when extending beyond the mobile network. In other cases, proprietary codecs are being adopted which further create islands with no interoperability unless widespread transcoding is performed. Transcoding leads to higher costs and lower quality. The goal of this working group is to define a single codec with multiple profiles which can be made available on a wide variety of Internet-capable devices including low-power, mobile devices as well as devices capable of utilizing high quality, high bitrate audio. Proposed Deliverables: 1) Requirements for wideband, Internet audio codec(s). 2) Algorithm description for wideband, Internet audio codec(s) as Proposed Standard. 3) Specification of payload format(s) for defined codecs as Proposed Standard
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