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AbstractAn Austrian SME in the area of telecommunication and IT services has developed a service platform to provide flexible and easy-to-use video and voice services to all 3G/UMTS-capable mobile phones. The platform allows telecommunication companies and 3rd parties to provide content (e.g. sports, music, touristy information) to all users of 3G/UMTS handsets without installing proprietary software on the client. The company is looking for partners for further development and a commercial agreement.DetailsThe offered service platform is a module-based system that enables the creation of flexible and easy-to-use video and voice services like:- Interactive voice/video response (IVR). - Entertainment services (mobile karaoke). - Voice/video messaging services. - Mobile video surveillance. Choosing standard UMTS video call as sole content carrier, this service platform enables user interaction without the need to install a proprietary client on the user's mobile phone. With comparison to mobile Internet, the service-platform-based solutions provide a constant level of quality independent of the number of concurrent users residing in the same UMTS cell, implicit user authentication by MSID (Mobile Subscriber Identification), push of content (outbound call) and various charging options (toll-free, value added, premium SMS, etc.). To deliver feature-rich multimedia content across different networks and standards the service platform can be integrated into a 3G-H324M/H.320-based network using a H.324M/ H.320 to H.323 video gateway. Provisioning of audio and video content is controlled by the Extensible Call Flow Management (XCFM) allowing creation of dynamic services, incorporating even the most complex call flow. For the creation of dynamic services video overlays like picture-on-picture, rectangle, text, etc. are natively built in. In order to integrate external data sources or to invoke external applications from within the call flow built-in back-end adapters are available. SMS/MMS Gateway allows the user to connect the service platform to a Short Message Service/Multimedia Messaging Service Centre. This allows sending SMS/MMS right out of a voice/video call or to trigger outbound call to push content via (premium) SMS. Additionally to file based (stored) media content, following media is supported as well: • Live Audio/Video content from network cameras (PGCam, AXIS) and other capture devices. • Streamed (RTSP) Audio/Video content The service platform is targeting Linux OS (e.g. RedHat Enterprise Server 4.4) and its core is entirely implemented in C/C++, optimised for performance and small footprint. Because of its technical design, solutions are highly scalable and fail-safe - in spite of that the service platform is cost-effective in acquisition and expandability. The solution targets all segments (e.g. tourism, security, fun) where a reliable carrier for multi-modal content is required. The possibility to set up value added service promises a short-term return on investment. Innovative Aspects: - Media processing (audio/video transcoding), DTMF control. * - High-level scripting language for flexible and easy-to- use voice/video services. - Back-end integration (DB, SMS, MMS, scripting). ** - Enhanced video experience with built-in overlay effects. - Scaleable from running on a single server to managed clusters offering redundancy and high availability. *) Video formats:mpg, mp4, avi, mjpeg, etc. Audio formats:wav, mp3, ogg, etc. Image formats:raw, bmp, jpg, gif, tiff, ppm, etc. **) DB engines:MySQL, Postrgres, Oracle DB9 Scripting:shell, php, perl, etc. While developing the application one major aspect was the focus on simplicity and intuitive control of services, starting by simply dialling a number rather than keying in a URL to retrieve stored, live or whatsoever content. Main advantages are the defined bandwidth for a service reachable by only dialling a number, no loss of service quality when several users within one radio cell connect to the service as it is by mobile Internet. The user is authenticated by his MSID, and the billing is done by the telecommunication provider he is registered at.
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