Lucent Technologies Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

At+t Corp.

Avaya Technology LLC

Sudhir Raman Ahuja

Murali Aravamudan

James Robert Ensor

Ioannis A Korilis

Dong Liu

Roy Philip Weber

Venkatesh Krishnaswamy

Peter H Stuntebeck

Ram S Ramamurthy

Eugene J Rosenthal

Ashok K Kuthyar

Mauricio Cortes

Qiru Zhou

Gianpaolo U Carraro

Alfred Vaino Aho

Jingdong Chen

Yiteng Arden Huang

Boyd T Mathews

Vatsan Rajagopalan

Mehmet Karaul

Theodora A Varvarigou

Joseph Quanaim

A device testing capability is presented herein. The device testing capability supports automated testing of media devices (e.g., cameras, microphones, speakers, or the like) for verifying that the media devices are functioning properly. The device testing capability may support automated verification by an endpoint that one or more media devices or one or more sets of media devices associated with endpoint are functioning properly. For example, the device testing capability may support automated verification by a computer that a camera associated with the computer is functioning properly. For example, the device testing capability may support automated verification by a computer that a speaker and a microphone that are associated with the computer are functioning properly. The device testing capability may support automated verification, by a management system, of the proper functioning of media devices associated with endpoints in a set of endpoints.

Automated testing of media devices

An external capability for measuring roundtrip latency in a conferencing system is provided. The external capability for measuring roundtrip latency in a communication system may include functions of generating a content event, detecting the content event in a received content stream including the content event, determine a first time associated with generation of the content event and a second time associated with detection of the content event, and computing a roundtrip latency based on a difference between the second time and the first time. The content event may be a visual event or an aural event. These functions may be implemented using one or more modules or elements. A computing device may be used to generate and detect the content event and to compute the roundtrip latency. Various other arrangements of modules or elements may be used to provide the functions.

External roundtrip latency measurement for a communication system

A method and apparatus for performing active speaker selection in teleconferencing applications illustratively comprises a microphone array module, a speaker recognition system, a user interface, and a speech signal selection module. The microphone array module separates the speech signal from each active speaker from those of other active speakers, providing a plurality of individual speaker's speech signals. The speaker recognition system identifies each currently active speaker using conventional speaker recognition/identification techniques. These identities are then transmitted to a remote teleconferencing location for display to remote participants via a user interface. The remote participants may then select one of the identified speakers, and the speech signal selection module then selects for transmission the speech signal associated with the selected identified speaker, thereby enabling the participants at the remote location to listen to the selected speaker and neglect the speech from other active speakers.

Method and apparatus for active speaker selection using microphone arrays and speaker recognition

A multimedia multiparty communication system and method which includes one or more &ldquo;agents&rdquo; and one or more &ldquo;brokers&rdquo;. Each communication session is managed by a broker which creates and maintains the session. An agent may cause a broker to alter a communication session by entering into &ldquo;negotiations&rdquo; with the broker. It is also possible for an agent, through the broker, to enter into negotiations with one or more other agents. Negotiations, between agents and between agents and brokers may consist of any number of exchanged messages (or &ldquo;offers&rdquo;), thereby allowing for the dynamic negotiations necessary for effective multimedia multiparty communications.

Multimedia multiparty communication system and method

Interacting call appearances are realized by enabling voice input/output to be simultaneously available on any combination of call appearances at a given time on a given terminal. Consequently, a user may, for example, listen to the voice output of one or more call appearances that are active at the terminal at a given time. Additionally, the user may direct voice input to one or more call appearances that are active at the terminal at a given time. Thus, the user, at any given time, may listen or speak to one or more parties on unrelated calls. Additionally, a user can employ more than one voice input/output device at his/her terminal. Specifically, the ability to simultaneously use more than one call appearance at a terminal at a given time is realized by separating call control from media routing and input/output control. Thus, the appearance of a call at a terminal is separated from the voice input/output that is required for the call. To this end, a user terminal or resources available to it must have the capability of mixing multiple channels of audio, as well as, the capability of multiplexing/demultiplexing voice inputs and outputs into and from line appearances.

Multiline telephone including interacting call appearances

In a communications arrangement where services requested by users are provided over a network, communication flow arising from the services are shared by multiple links in the network. The users are required to pay for use of the links to realize the respective services. A target operating point defining the desired amount of communication flow on each link is established. A pricing scheme in accordance with the invention is used to price each link on a per unit of flow basis. Each user elects use of the capacity of those relatively inexpensive links to fulfil the requested service to minimize the cost. Such optimization actions by the individual users give rise to a &ldquo;routing game&rdquo; leading to a Nash equilibrium which coincides with the target operating point. Thus, with the inventive pricing scheme, the target operating point is attained over time by virtue of the users' cost optimization actions.

Method and apparatus for pricing links/paths based on a requested amount of bandwidth wherein links can be load balanced by varying their costs

A circuit configuration in a multimedia network representing a controllably persistent virtual meeting room simulates an actual meeting room where conferences between two or more people may be held. This facilitates the creation in the network of flexible, long-term multimedia conferences between conferees who are separated from one another. Any number of conferees may communicate with one another via one or more of audio, video, and data. Virtual meeting rooms may persist in the network for predetermined periods of time controlled by the users of the meeting room. The room may remain in the network independent of whether or not a user is connected to the room. The meeting room is a vehicle whereby the activity of various media servers is coordinated to effectuate conferences between multiple participants in more than one medium. The servers are associated with storage devices which may record or store certain aspects of multimedia conferences using the virtual meeting room.

Multimedia communications network

For a world that has a portion of the world distant from the point of view of the user represented in only two dimensions as a video on a video screen, when an object on the video screen undergoes a trajectory that takes at least a portion of it to a location in the world that is not represented by the video but instead is a location in the world that is represented by computer graphics, in addition to being able to continue to see such an object when it is rendered as computer graphics in the computer graphics part of the world, i.e., popped out from the video, one is able to interact with such an object. Thus, an object which pops out from a video into the computer graphics part of the world may be &ldquo;investigated&rdquo; by a viewer of the world. For example, the user could enter a store which popped out of the video, and engage in virtual shopping therein. The particular store which is actually entered may be customized on a per user basis, e.g., as a function of geography. When the proprietor of a virtual store, or his representative, e.g., electronic agent, detects the avatar of one or more persons in the vicinity of the avatar of a store for which such proprietor's store corresponds to the virtual store for such passing persons, a message may be transmitted to such passing persons.

Three dimensional virtual reality enhancement techniques

Enhanced Internet service is provided over an ISDN line by eliminating from the D-channel any packets that will introduce unacceptable delay in packets transmitted over the B-channel. The enhancement is achieved by segregating the packets between the B-channels and the D-channel based on the stream to which the packets belong. Furthermore, instead of bonding together both B-channels and the D-channel, only the B-channels may be bonded to each other, while the D-channel is kept independent. To do so, instead of using MLPPP over the combination of both B-channels and the D-channel, as in the prior art, MLPPP is used over only both B-channels, while data that is separately directed to the D-channel employs another protocol, e.g., PPP. Advantageously, the number of protocols used to transmit the information over the D-channel may be reduced, resulting in a higher bandwidth for applications.

Internet service via ISDN

A client request directed to a web site or other service hosted by a distributed pool of servers is processed by a client agent associated with the client. The client agent intercepts the client request and routes it to a particular one of the servers in the pool. The client agent bases its routing decision on address information regarding the individual servers of the pool and performance data regarding processing of previous client requests directed to the service. The address information may be retrieved by the client agent from a response to an initial client request directed to the service. The performance data may include response times for servicing previous client requests directed to the service, and the client agent may route the client request such that an average response time of multiple requests to the service is minimized. It may also make use of a probabilistic routing strategy which ensures that each of the servers in the pool receives at least one client request, such that accurate performance data may be maintained for all of the servers. A pricing manager associated with the server pool may be used to establish discount factors or other pricing information for each of the servers in the pool. This pricing information is communicated to the client agents and used in their routing decisions, so as to ensure that otherwise non-cooperating client agents will route their requests in a manner consistent with a target operating point established by the service provider.

Client-side techniques for web server allocation

Enhanced Internet service is provided over an ISDN line by eliminating from the D-channel any packets that will introduce unacceptable delay in packets transmitted over the B-channel. The enhancement is achieved by segregating the packets between the B-channels and the D-channel based on the stream to which the packets belong. Furthermore, instead of bonding together both B-channels and the D-channel, only the B-channels may be bonded to each other, while the D-channel is kept independent. To do so, instead of using MLPPP over the combination of both B-channels and the D-channel, as in the prior art, MLPPP is used over only both B-channels, while data that is separately directed to the D-channel employs another protocol, e.g., PPP. Advantageously, the number of protocols used to transmit the information over the D-channel may be reduced, resulting in a higher bandwidth for applications. The bandwidth of the D-channel can be dynamically throttled by an access server. Such throttling can be used to prevent the access server, or the packet switch in the central office switch that is serving the ISDN line, from being flooded. The central office switch supporting the ISDN line may be supplemented to support frame relay over the D-channel, which can provide performance improvement. The frame relay packets are automatically routed to the access server. Packets may also be limited to being sent only over the D-channel.

In an intranet, servers provide services for a price. A user is allotted a budget consisting of a limited amount of electronic credits to pay for the services. When the user requests a selected service from a server, the server offers a service price which can be accepted or rejected by the user, depending on the importance of the service to the user. The service price is determined based on, for example, the workload attendant to the requested service, its quality of service (QOS) requirements and current conditions pertaining to the server, in accordance with a pricing strategy. The latter is implemented to achieve network-wide objectives such as reducing network congestion by balancing load among the servers.

Technique for effectively managing resources in a network

A communications system is designed to monitor voice communications signals for an initial end-to-end communications link which is comprised of a) a wireless segment which connects a wireless network to a wireless end-user apparatus, and b) a second segment which connects a communications end-user device to the wireless network. When the system detects that the wireless segment is inoperative, it inhibits the release of the second segment. Thereafter, the system sets up a subsequent wireless segment which extends from the wireless network to the wireless end-user apparatus. The subsequent wireless segment is then bridged to the second segment to form a new end-to-end communications link to restore connectivity between the wireless end-user apparatus and the communications end-user device.

Disconnection management system for wireless voice communications

A multimedia telecommunications network provides telephone service which may involve one or more of audio, video, and data communications. In one example of the invention, the multimedia telecommunications network contains a virtual meeting services complex which provides multimedia telecommunications service to subscribers of the network. Multimedia telephone calls can be completed automatically by the virtual meeting services complex in a manner similar to that now used to complete conventional audio telephone calls. The multimedia telecommunications network containing this virtual meeting services complex is able to connect together users having diverse equipment and is able to handle integrated and nonintegrated network access mechanisms.

Growing community of inventors

Little Silver, NJ, United States of America

Sudhir Raman Ahuja