System and method for reducing data quality degradation due to encoding/decoding

• US 6,718,183 B1
• Filed: 06/05/2001
• Issued: 04/06/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: DigiMedia Tech, LLC (IP Investments Group LLC)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Frerking, Melvin D., Blust, Stephen M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Nay
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, TU X
• Application Number:
  US09/873,427
• Time in Patent Office: 1,036 Days
• Field of Search: 455/560, 455/561, 455/553, 455/552, 455/552.1, 455/553.1, 704/212, 704/221, 704/200, 395/2.21, 395/2.3, 395/2.37, 395/2.39, 234/69, 234/70, 375/295, 375/222, 375/241, 375/242, 375/240, 341/50, 341/75, 341/77, 341/82, 341/99, 341/155
• US Class Current: 455/560
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/005 Correction of errors induced by the transmission channel, if related to the coding algorithm
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/173 Transcoding, i.e. converting between two coded representations avoiding cascaded coding-decoding

Abstract

Transliteration architectures reduce the number of encoding/decoding steps required to transmit telephony data. The reduction of encoding/decoding steps improves the quality of the transmitted data due to the avoidance of the significant adverse effects on the data from encoding and decoding. The reduction is accomplished using a transliterator device or through bypassing the transliterator device. A universal vocoder is proposed that allows the vocoding element to encode or decode data according to any desired vocoder format. Network routing considerations allow optimal decisions on which vocoder formats to use. Network routing decisions can be made based on vocoder formats used.

Claims

1. A system for reducing degradation of analog voice data that must be encoded and decoded using a vocoder, comprising:

(a) a sending device having a vocoder utilizing a first vocoder format to encode the analog voice data to digitized data;

(b) a transliterator to transliterate the digitized data to transliterated data having a second vocoder format to reduce degradation to the digitized data caused by encoding and decoding during transmission of the digitized data from the sending device, wherein the second vocoder format is selected from a plurality of vocoder formats after the transliterator uses each of the plurality of vocoder formats to process the digitized data, analyzes the digitized data after the process, and determine that the second vocoder format results in the least amount of degradation in transmitting the digitized data; and

(c) a receiving device for receiving the transliterated data from the sending device, the receiving device having a vocoder utilizing a third vocoder format to convert the transliterated data back to the analog voice data.

2. The system recited in claim 1, further comprising a first MSC to receive the digitized data and transliterate the digitized data to a common data format that is different from the first vocoder format and the third vocoder format as transliterated data.

3. The system recited in claim 2, further comprising a second MSC to receive the transliterated data and convert it from the common format to a format that is understood by the vocoder in the receiving device.

4. The system recited in claim 1, further comprising a first MSC to receive the digitized data and transliterate the digitized data to a substitute vocoder format as transliterated data.

5. The system recited in claim 4, further comprising a second MSC to receive the transliterated data and convert it from the substitute vocoder format to a format that is understood by the vocoder in the receiving device.

6. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the transliterator converts the digitized data to a format that is different from one or both of the first and second vocoder formats.

7. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the vocoder in the receiving device can impersonate a plurality of vocoder formats, wherein the vocoder in the sending device impersonates the vocoder format of the vocoder in the receiving device.

8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the transliterator is bypassed if the second vocoder format is the same as the first vocoder format, further comprising a data massager to process the digitized data prior to its transmission over an intervening network having at least one intervening network element, the data processor processing the data to substantially reduce the effect of the at least one intervening network element on the digitized data as it propagates through the intervening network.

9. The system recited in claim 8, wherein the receiving device further comprising a de-massager to de-massage the massaged digitized voice data.

10. The system recited in claim 1, wherein when the third vocodor format is the same as the second vocodor format, the receiving device bypasses the transliterated data and covert the transliterated data back to analog voice data.

11. A method for transmitting digitized voice data from a sending device to a receiving device that minimizes degradation on the quality of the voice data, comprising:

converting analog voice data to the digitized voice data in a first vocoder utilizing a first vocoder format;

determining whether the digitized data requires transliteration;

if the transliteration is required, transliterating the digitized data to transliterated data with a second vocoder format to reduce degradation of the transliterated data when it is transmitted to the receiving device from the sending device, wherein the second vocoder format is selected from a plurality of vocoder formats after using each of the plurality of vocoder formats to process the digitized data, analyzing the digitized data after the process, and determining that the second vocoder format results in the least amount of degradation in transmitting the digitized data;

if the transliteration is not required transmitting the digitized data with the first vocoder format to the receiving device; and

transmitting the transliterated data with the second vocoder format to the receiving device if transliteration is required.

12. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 11, further comprising the step of impersonating a vocoder implemented on the receiving device.

13. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 12, further comprising:

converting the digitized data to a vocoder format used by the receiving device; and

bypassing the digitized data with the receiving device'"'"'s vocoder format to the receiving device.

14. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 11, further comprising the step of translating the digitized data to a format of another vocoder.

15. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 11, wherein when no transliteration is required, further comprising the steps of:

(a) transmitting the digitized data through an intervening network having intervening network elements; and

(b) massaging the digitized data in accordance with one or more transmission characteristics of an intervening network.

16. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 15, wherein the sending and receiving devices are MSCs, further comprising the step of bypassing the vocoders in the MSCs.

17. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 15, wherein the sending and receiving devices are base stations, further comprising the step of bypassing the vocoders in the base stations.

18. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 11, further comprising the step of selecting the vocoder format in the sending device in accordance with the vocoder format of the receiving device.

19. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 11, further comprising the steps of:

(a) selecting a common vocoder format;

(b) converting the analog voice data to digital voice data in accordance with the common vocoder format as transliterated data; and

(c) transmitting the transliterated data to the receiving device.

20. The method for transmitting digitized voice data recited in claim 19, wherein the receiving device is a receiving subscriber unit, further comprising the steps of:

(a) converting the transliterated data to a vocoder format that the receiving device can decode; and

(b) transmitting the converted data to the receiving device.

21. The method of claim 17, further comprising selecting the first vocoder format from a predetermined list of vocoder formats whereby the first vocoder format results in the least amount of degradation when transliterated from the first vocoder format to the second vocoder format.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the selection of the first vocoder is performed by a universal vocoder.

23. The method for transmitting digitized voice data in claim 11, further comprising the step of substitue a vocoder implemented on the receiving device.

24. The method for transmitting digitized voice data in claim 23, further comprising:

communicating between the sending device and the receiving device to determine which vocoder format to use, where the vocoder format can be used by both of the sending device and the receiving device,

if no proper vocoder format is available through the communication, downloading a proper vocoder format from a vocoder storage area.

25. The method for transmitting digitized voice data in claim 11, wherein the second vocoder format is a common vocoder format that can be used for both of the sending device and the receiving device.

26. The method for transmitting digitized voice data in claim 11, wherein the sending device comprises a universal decoder for converting the voice data to any desired vocoder format.

31. The method of claim 17, further comprising selecting a third, intervening, vocoder format for transliterating between the first and second vocoder formats that results in the least amount of degradation when the first vocoder format is transliterated into the third vocoder format and the third vocoder format is transliterated into the second vocoder format.

27. A system for reducing degradation to analog voice data due to encoding and decoding comprising:

a first switch to receive digitized data representative of the analog voice data from a sending base station that receives the digitized data representative of the analog voice data from a sending subscriber unit;

a first transliterator in the first switch to transliterate the digitized voice data to a first vocoder format that reduces degradation of the digitized voice data when the digitized voice data is transmitted from the sending subscriber unit through a transmission network to a receiving subscriber unit by selecting the first vocoder format that is most compatible with a second vocoder format utilized by the receiving subscriber unit;

a second switch to receive the transliterated data from the first switch; and

a second transliterator in the second switch to convert the transliterated data to digitized data representative of the analog voice data in the second vocoder format that a second vocoder in the receiving subscriber unit can process, and

wherein at least one of the first and second vocoder format is selected from a plurality of vocoder formats after the first and second transliterator uses each of the plurality of vocoder formats to process the digitized data, analyzes the digitized data after each transliteration, and determines that the first or the second vocoder format results in the least amount of degradation in transmitting the digitized data.

28. The system recited in claim 27, wherein the first transliterator is a universal vocoder.

29. The system recited in claim 27, where in the first transliterator translates the digitized data into another vocoder format and the second transliterator translates the data from the another vocoder format to a vocoder format that the second vocoder can process.

30. The stem recited in claim 29 wherein the first transliterator converts the digitized data to a common format and the second transliterator converts the data in the common format to a vocoder format that the second vocoder can process.

32. A system for reducing degradation of analog voice data to be encoded and decoded using a vocoder, comprising:

(a) a sending device having a first vocoder to encode the analog voice data to digitized data utilizing a first vocoder format;

(b) a second vocoder to receive the digitized data, and encode the digitized data to a second vocoder format;

(c) a third vocoder to received the data in the second vocoder format, and decode the data in the second vocoder format to digitized data;

(d) a receiving device having a fourth vocoder to receive the digitized data and convert the digitized data back to analog voice data;

(e) a transliterator to transliterate the digitized data to reduce degradation to the data caused by encoding and decoding during transmission from the sending device to the receiving device;

wherein the transliterator transliterates the digitized data with a vocoder format, wherein the vocoder format is selected from a plurality of vocoder formats after the transliterator uses each of the plurality of vocoder forms to process the digitized data, analyzes the digitized data after the process, and determines a vocoder format that result in a least amount of degradation in transmitting the digitized voice data; and

(f) bypass means for bypassing the second and third decoders such that the digitized data is sent to the receiving device without further encoding, wherein the bypass means processes the digitized data to reduce its degradation when transmitted from the sending device to the receiving device over an intervening network.