News for and about the Internet2 community

[Michelle Pollak <>]

NEW STANDARD MAKES VIDEOCONFERENCING AS EASY AS EMAIL

ITU Adopts H.350 Architecture Developed by Internet2 Working Group

WASHINGTON, D.C. - September 3, 2003 – A new standard announced today by 
the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will make 
videoconferencing with colleagues, friends and relatives via the Internet 
easier and less expensive.  Resulting from an Internet2(R) Middleware 
Initiative Video working group, the new H.350 standard provides a uniform 
way for storing and finding information related to video and voice over 
Internet Protocol (VoIP) in enterprise directories.

The newly standardized technology enables companies and universities to 
scale up video and VoIP operations from a few hundred endpoints to full 
enterprise deployments without hiring additional systems administrators by 
linking account management and authorization automation to the enterprise 
directory using the lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP).

H.350 makes video and VoIP information available globally, and helps with 
user device configuration, as well as providing a convenient place to store 
authentication credentials – resulting in a more secure and integrated 
environment for video and VoIP conferencing.

“ITU has a significant role to play in the future of videoconferencing, and 
with H.320 and H.323 we have already played a major part in the development 
of the multimedia standards that allow systems to communicate with each 
other worldwide.  With H.350 we continue our tradition of cooperating with 
other standards development bodies, as this is the most efficient way to 
deliver meaningful products to businesses and consumers on a global basis,” 
said Mr. Simão Ferraz de Campos Neto, Counselor to Study Group 16, the ITU 
group responsible for ratifying the standard.

Yaron Bul, Director of Product Marketing for RADVISION (Nasdaq:RVSN), a 
leading global provider of videoconferencing infrastructure solutions, 
commented: “RADVISION has already embraced the newly approved standard and 
is committed to fully implementing H.350.  This standardization is 
important for vendors like RADVISION and the visual communications industry 
at large because the H.350 architecture addresses two very important issues 
in managing a videoconferencing network - easy scaling of video networks 
and implementing a vendor-agnostic, industry-wide directory standard.”

H.350 was born out of the Video Middleware Group, a joint effort between 
the Internet2 Middleware group and the Video Development Initiative 
(ViDe).  Significant support for this work was provided by a National 
Science Foundation grant, ANI-0222710, “ViDeNet: Middleware for Scalable 
Video Services for Research and Higher Education” to the University of 
Alabama at Birmingham with partners: Claremont Graduate University, SURFnet 
and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  An example directory service 
based on H.350 is available through ViDeNet at 
https://videnet.unc.edu/vide-dod/ for searching and making IP calls around 
the world.

“H.350 allows you to search for and find a user’s video or VoIP address 
just like you would find an email address or telephone number 
today.  Because it is standardized, enterprises can maintain this 
information with the confidence that it will work with multiple vendor’s 
equipment,” said Tyler Johnson, a systems analyst at the University of 
North Carolina and editor of the H.350 document.

H.350 supports H.320, H.323, session initiation protocol (SIP) and 
non-standard protocols.  H.320 is ISDN video conferencing; H.323 is the 
video and VoIP widely deployed over ViDeNet today and is used in most 
Internet2 schools today; SIP is a protocol that supports video and VoIP 
with an emerging following; and support for non-standard protocols allows 
users of experimental technologies to be represented in the directory in a 
standardized manner.

About RADVISION
RADVISION LTD. (Nasdaq: RVSN) is the industry’s leading provider of high 
quality, scalable and easy-to-use products and technologies for 
videoconferencing, video telephony, and the development of converged voice, 
video and data over IP and 3G networks.  For more information please visit 
our website at www.radvision.com

About ViDe
The Video Development Initiative (ViDe) promotes the deployment of digital 
video in research and higher education.  Leveraging our collective 
resources and expertise, ViDe advances digital video deployment through 
promotion and development of interoperable, standardized, and 
cost-effective technologies.

ViDe was founded by representatives from universities and education 
networks; ViDe members today include those interested in improving and 
deploying scalable, standards-based digital video architecture and services 
for use in research and higher education.

ViDe projects include: the Video Conferencing Cookbook; ViDeNet, the 
global, virtual network providing video and voice-over-IP to advanced 
networking communities; the annual ViDe Digital Video Workshop; and working 
groups focusing on specific advancements in videoconferencing, video 
streaming, video asset management, and data 
collaboration.  http://www.vide.net/

About Internet2(R)
Led by over 200 U.S. universities, working with industry and government, 
Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network applications and 
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation 
of tomorrow’s Internet.  Internet2 recreates the partnerships among 
academia, industry, and government that helped foster today’s Internet in 
its infancy.  For more information about Internet2, visit: 
http://www.internet2.edu/.

# # #
CONTACT:
Michelle Pollak
Internet2
(202) 331-5345



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