IP-based narrow-band videophone system

Architecture of an IP-based narrow-band videophone system is proposed in this paper for convenient videophone calls between any two computers even if being placed in two different LANs within network agents. The bandwidth need of each call is less than 256 kbps. The system consists of two kinds of entities: Videophone Terminals (VPT) and a Video Call Server (VCS). A VPT is actually a microcomputer program, composed of 4 primary parts, an audio codec, a video codec, a media deliverer/receiver and a call controller. The basic functions of the VCS include videophone number generation and management, access admission and address resolution. The VCS with a public IP address plays an important role in the system especially when a video call has to penetrate through network agents. Each VPT in the system gets its own external transport address from the VCS through registration process. A calling VPT would receive the external transport address of the called VPT from the VCS through address resolution. The proposed system works and is helpful to accelerate the realization of people's videophone dream over IP networks.