Texas Instruments Extends End-to-End IP Quality Management With its PIQUA(TM) Software for Carrier Infrastructure

Service Providers Get Clearer Network Views for Advanced IP and Converged

Applications

DALLAS, Nov. 23 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Further demonstrating its

commitment to improving all forms of Internet Protocol (IP)-based

communications, Texas Instruments, Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today

extends its PIQUA(TM) software with its first implementation in media

gateways for carrier networks. TI’s PIQUA system of IP quality management

elements enables service providers and carriers to deliver an advanced level

of quality to consumer and business subscribers migrating to Internet and IP-

based services. With TI’s PIQUA elements embedded in equipment at both the

customer premise and the network, consumers using IP-based services -- such

as Voice over IP (VoIP), Video over IP, IPTV and Internet-based music - will

realize exceptional quality and performance with their IP applications. For

more information on TI’s PIQUA technology, please visit

http://www.ti.com/piqua .

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TI’s PIQUA technology is a standards-based system for IP quality

management, using RTCP-XR and TI-developed extensions to measure VoIP

performance, with plans to incorporate RTCP-HR and RTCP-Video for future IP

applications. These standards allow the delivery of quality metrics to a

network management and quality assurance system. The PIQUA system extends

the parameters available in these reports with custom features such as its

Echo Quality Index, providing enhanced statistics and diagnostic

capabilities. Together these features allow for the real-time response to

service degradation while providing the carrier or service provider with

extensive metrics that accurately convey the user experience.

“TI’s commitment to IP quality speaks volumes about the company’s

belief in not only offering high performance hardware, but also ensuring that

its customers have the most complete VoIP solution,” said William Stofega,

research manager with IDC’s VoIP Services Program. “As carriers prepare to

deliver next-generation services, like IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) and

fixed mobile convergence (FMC), they will need greater access to and better

views of their networks to support and monitor the wide variety of

applications delivered via broadband connections.”

The transition to an all-IP network enables service providers to deliver

enhanced features for voice, video and data to their commercial and

residential customers. These same service providers are also confronted with

additional performance challenges, as their fixed, cellular and broadband

networks converge over IP. In order to adequately manage these challenges,

it is essential that they focus on quality of service (QoS) parameters to

best manage IP performance and their subscriber’s experience.

The advent of IMS and other advanced services and functionality will make

QoS an even higher priority. With TI’s PIQUA technology, service providers

can adapt to changing conditions and quickly make adjustments, enabling the

discovery, monitoring and repair of their services and networks.

“By embedding TI’s PIQUA elements in the network, service providers can

focus on meaningfully identifying potential problems and flagging and

repairing degraded service, ensuring they deliver the best IP services and

applications that their subscribers expect and demand,” said John Warner,

strategic marketing manager for TI’s Communications Infrastructure group.

“Ensuring voice quality in an all-IP network is a complex issue, as there

are many opportunities for problematic service, including signalling errors,

packet loss, echo, delay and dropped calls. TI’s PIQUA technology combines a

variety of indictors that identify each of these issues to offer service

providers a more complete view of their network, enabling them to best

protect their initial investments, reduce customer turnover and continue to

add new subscribers.” TI’s PIQUA system is based on the company’s digital

signal processor (DSP) technology and embedded software solutions that

provide a real-time distributed system of complete quality management

elements that monitor and improve the quality of IP-based services, such as

voice, data and video. This unique quality management tool collects data from

a variety of endpoints, including user devices, IP set-top boxes and

residential and media gateways. These endpoints use DSPs to execute software,

which encode voice and perform the signal processing required to facilitate

the transmission of voice between various networks.

With TI’s PIQUA-embedded elements represented in more endpoints

throughout the network and CPE devices, better quality can be delivered with

additional information available for monitoring and analysis. Endpoints with

TI’s PIQUA elements also provide a valuable resource for managing today’s

complex IP networks.

The flexible PIQUA system enables TI’s customers to use their own

algorithms and management features to determine which parameters are most

important for their network quality management. This ensures that

manufacturers can implement their own quality features to better

differentiate their products from competitive offerings while making their

solutions ready for quick deployment in advanced IP networks as more

operators began demanding better quality metrics. Additionally, service

providers can determine which parameters they most need analyzed and

corrected to best meet their customers’ needs and requirements.

Availability

TI’s PIQUA technology is available today and included in select TI

carrier infrastructure products shipping to customers around the world.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog

technologies to meet our customers’ real world signal processing

requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company includes the

Educational & Productivity Solutions business. TI is headquartered in Dallas,

Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25

countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the

symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at

http://www.ti.com .

Trademarks

PIQUA is a trademark of Texas Instruments. All other trademarks and

registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.