Skype SILK codec in the IETF standards process

Congratulations to Skype Stockholm's Koen Vos, Soeren Jensen, and Karsten Soerensen on their submission of the SILK Speech Codec to the Internet Engineering Task Force as an Internet-Draft, the first step on the way to becoming an IETF standard. Thanks to Skype's Jin Kim and Jason Fischl for helping it start the process.

This follows-through on Skype's pledge to make superwideband audio cheap and ubiquitous.

On the business side, the SILK codec eliminates one of Skype's three outside software dependencies: audio codecs from Global IP Solutions (GIPS). The two remaining are Skype's high quality video codec, from On2, and Skype's peer-to-peer directory, the Global Index from Joltid. Skype's commitment to free themselves from dependencies should comfort investors and others worried about the Joltid/Joost litigation.

Here's Jonathan Christensen speaking about the evolution of codecs (the software that turns your voice into bits and back) at the March 2009 Emerging Communications conference (slides, podcast). 

TIP: Jonathan will speak next month at eComm Amsterdam. 10% off with discount code "SkypeJournal".

tags: skype, codec, silk, ietf, stockholm, standards, internet-draft, speech, koenvos, soerenjensen, karstensoerensen, ecomm, ecommconf, ecomm.eu

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