Internet Wideband Audio Codec (IWAC)
Mailing Lists: codec@ietf.org
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