Secure Voice over IP with Variable Data Rate vocoder (SVoIP-VDR)

This Phase I proposal addresses the Navy SBIR program objective to enable and promote efficient implementation of secure voice communications using the latest networked voice related commercial technologies leading to the development of a Secure Voice over Internet Protocol (SVoIP) terminals. This work supports the DOD and DON initiatives for convergence of secure voice and secure data into common Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks with an eye toward future net-centric operations. Our approach to meet the Navy objective is to leverage the Company expertise in communication network system design, VoIP SIP Protocol implementations and embedded software development to define, validate, and implement a Secure Voice Core Technology (SVCT) software package incorporating the NRL advanced variable data rate voice encoder. The SVCT package will target, but not necessarily be limited to, the mobile user equipment component of the overall SVoIP network system. We intend the SVCT software package to be easily configured and ported to various hardware platforms that meet the SVCT performance requirements. The Phase I effort will define the modules of the SVCT, and specify and validate ways to implement these modules. In Phase II, we intend to implement the SVCT package and demonstrate its capability in a SVoIP network setup on a Mayflower wireless end-to-end system test bed. BENEFITS: We anticipate a tremendous potential of commercial applications of SVoIP SVCT-type software package. It is now a fact that cellular service providers will continue and even accelerate their migration from a circuit-switched supported telephone to a packetized service using VoIP. Other wireless service providers, such as those with services based on WLAN (802.11) radio links are also migrating from data-only internet access to include voice service using VoIP architectures. There will always be a need to squeeze more performance from already challenged handheld mobile terminal platforms, thus an optimized software package that implements various components of a VoIP application, such as the SVCT, has a great commercialization potential as licensable software to commercial video/data service providers.