August 1, 2006 at 14:58Patented VoIP degradation technology
The German company Infineon has filed a patent application for the technology of mixing garbage packets into VoIP traffic. The patent does not explain why to do this, but you can guess.
This technology is designed to intentionally degrade the quality of VoIP telephony. Who could benefit from its use? Obviously, this is beneficial for telecom operators that provide telephone services and simultaneously pass through their network VoIP traffic from competitors - VoIP providers. Due to the fact that the popularity of VoIP telephony is growing rapidly, traditional telecom operators are losing a significant part of their revenue.
U.S. Patent Application No. 0060062151describes a method and device for mixing empty packets into voice traffic that is transmitted over communication networks. As written in the document, this allows "to degrade the quality of voice services to the required level."
The technology works as follows. The computer on the network analyzes the passing traffic and extracts voice packets from it. Then it mixes additional “pseudo-packets” into this stream, which are also marked as VoIP packets, but do not contain useful information. Further, a special filter performs shaping (“trimming”) of traffic: it does not react to normal information packets, but “cuts” VoIP traffic. This filter delays the mix of original VoIP packets and pseudo packets. As a result, some of the packets are lost, and the client software that performs the decoding of the VoIP stream produces poor quality sound. This is expressed in trembling, a change in timbre, the disappearance of some sounds.
Another important part of the invention involves filtering out pseudo packets at the last shaping stage to eliminate any evidence of sabotage. After that, no one will be able to prove that the operator intentionally worsened the quality of communication. Perhaps, such technologies are already used in Russia, Belarus and other countries where large telecom operators are now experiencing fierce competition and are suffering losses due to the onset of free VoIP telephony.
Infineon has filed a patent application for its invention in both America and Germany. In addition, in Germany it is patenting another voice degradation technology that is transmitted over VoIP over WiFi access points.
This technology is designed to intentionally degrade the quality of VoIP telephony. Who could benefit from its use? Obviously, this is beneficial for telecom operators that provide telephone services and simultaneously pass through their network VoIP traffic from competitors - VoIP providers. Due to the fact that the popularity of VoIP telephony is growing rapidly, traditional telecom operators are losing a significant part of their revenue.
U.S. Patent Application No. 0060062151describes a method and device for mixing empty packets into voice traffic that is transmitted over communication networks. As written in the document, this allows "to degrade the quality of voice services to the required level."
The technology works as follows. The computer on the network analyzes the passing traffic and extracts voice packets from it. Then it mixes additional “pseudo-packets” into this stream, which are also marked as VoIP packets, but do not contain useful information. Further, a special filter performs shaping (“trimming”) of traffic: it does not react to normal information packets, but “cuts” VoIP traffic. This filter delays the mix of original VoIP packets and pseudo packets. As a result, some of the packets are lost, and the client software that performs the decoding of the VoIP stream produces poor quality sound. This is expressed in trembling, a change in timbre, the disappearance of some sounds.
Another important part of the invention involves filtering out pseudo packets at the last shaping stage to eliminate any evidence of sabotage. After that, no one will be able to prove that the operator intentionally worsened the quality of communication. Perhaps, such technologies are already used in Russia, Belarus and other countries where large telecom operators are now experiencing fierce competition and are suffering losses due to the onset of free VoIP telephony.
Infineon has filed a patent application for its invention in both America and Germany. In addition, in Germany it is patenting another voice degradation technology that is transmitted over VoIP over WiFi access points.