VoIP Research Articles

STFF-SM: Steganalysis Model Based on Spatial and Temporal Feature Fusion for Speech Streams

The real-time detection of speech steganography in Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) scenarios remains an open problem, as it requires steganalysis methods to perform for low-intensity embeddings and short-sample inputs, as well as provide rapid detection results. To address these challenges, this paper presents a novel steganalysis model based on spatial and temporal feature fusion (STFF-SM). Differing from the existing methods, we take both the integer and fractional pitch delays as input, and design subframe-stitch module to organically integrate subframe-wise integer delays and frame-wise fractional pitch delays. Further, we design a spatial fusion module based on pre-activation residual convolution to extract the pitch spatial features and gradually increase their dimensions to discover finer steganographic distortions to enhance the detection effect, where a Group-Squeeze-Weighting block is introduced to alleviate the information loss in the process of increasing the feature dimension. In addition, we design a temporal fusion module to extract pitch temporal features using the stacked LSTM, where a Gated Feed-Forward Network is introduced to learn the interaction between different feature maps while suppressing the features that are not useful for detection. We evaluated the performance of STFF-SM through comprehensive experiments and comparisons with the state-of-the-art solutions. The experimental results demonstrate that STFF-SM can well meet the needs of real-time detection of speech steganography in VoIP streams, and outperforms the existing methods in detection performance, especially with low embedding strengths and short window sizes.

Session Initiation Protocol Proxy in a Role of a Quality of Service Control Application in Software-Defined Networks

This article deals with quality of service (QoS) in internet protocol (IP) telephony by applying software-defined networking (SDN) tools. The authors develop a new design that deterministically classifies real-time protocol (RTP) streams based on data found in session initiation protocol (SIP) using SIP proxy as a mediator, and the concept making this possible is called SDN. Compared to traditional networks, SDN allows us to approach network configuration differently. SDN networks are programmable through software applications running on top of the SDN controller. One of the technologies that might benefit from this concept is IP telephony, which often needs an additional priority management configuration to ensure consistent quality of its real-time media exchange. Typically, a session protocol for real-time communications is SIP, and as such, its infrastructure may be used to classify the traffic in question and take advantage of the centralized approach of SDN networks to distribute the class information across the switching devices. Different approaches and possible applications are discussed in the conclusion. The contribution of this paper lies in the proposal of SDN-based QoS mechanisms. The entire design of the concept was implemented and validated in a laboratory environment. The results clearly demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.

Cognitive Hexagon-Controlled Intelligent Speech Interaction System

Several intelligent speech interaction (ISI) systems have emerged over the past four decades that have served the human community. The research papers show that these systems are very well connected to the cognitive hexagon and the six hybrid approaches. Where this hexagon reveals six distinct cognitive areas, one of the six hybrid perspectives gives rise to the dimensions of speech quality. This survey has been undertaken to reveal the dimensions of speech quality and to discuss the role of cognitive hexagonal regions on these dimensions with hybrid approaches. Here, ISI systems support this discussion and follow them as cognitive machines. An overview of the state of the art related to ISI systems is also described here. Techniques, such as processing [natural language (NL)], speech synthesis [speech-to-text (STT) or text-to-speech (TTS)], computing (voice/mobile), and audio mining are presented in this overview. These are contributing well with technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and cloud-based systems (CBSs). In addition, stochastic components, such as reliability, availability, and failure rate were discussed to analyze whether the Quality of Service (QoS) of these ISI systems is described. Additionally, after the discussion, some aspects of the applications are also discussed along with the essential advantages and significant drawbacks.

Toward QoS Prediction Based on Temporal Transformers for IoT Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) devices generate a tremendous amount of time series data that is extremely dynamic, heterogeneous and time dependent. Such types of data introduce significant challenges for the real-time prediction of QoS metrics of IoT applications with different traffic characteristics. To this end, in this paper, we propose a temporal transformer model and a unified system to predict several QoS metrics of heterogeneous IoT applications when they communicate with the Edge of the network. The transformer model also leverages an attention module to provide a solution for both short-term and long-term sequence prediction of QoS metrics that allows to better extract any time dependencies. In particular, in our framework, we firstly generate a set of datasets containing real-time traffic information of five different IoT applications such as Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), lighting, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), surveillance and emergency response using the 802.15.4 access technology and the RPL routing protocol. Following, we perform the data cleaning, downsampling and pre-processing of the datasets and we construct the QoS datasets, which include four QoS metrics, namely throughput, packet delivery ratio, packet loss ratio and latency. Finally, we evaluate the transformer model through extensive experimentation using both short-term and long-term dependencies and we show that our model can guarantee a robust performance and accurate QoS prediction.

Digital forensic analysis of discord on google chrome

Over the past decade, social media applications have significantly increased their market share and garnered a wide user base. However, these applications have also attracted the attention of criminals desiring to exploit the apps to support illicit operations due to the low barrier to entry and ease of usage. A digital forensic investigation of these applications can reveal valuable information about criminal activity and the suspect. Discord is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service that enables text, image, video, and audio chats. It has grown in popularity, and as a result, it is subject to increased use by cybercriminals. In this paper, we examine the remnants of the increasingly popular social media application ‘‘Discord” when used on the Google Chrome web browser. We recovered various artifacts such as payment information, sent messages, account settings, conversations, uploaded attachments, and much more, all of which could be utilized in a forensic investigation.

Utilization of emerging technologies for improved service delivery in public university libraries in Rivers State, Nigeria

This study investigated the utilisation of emerging technologies for improved service delivery in public university libraries in Rivers State. Two research questions guided the study. The research questions were to identify the emerging technologies in use for improved service delivery among public university information professionals in Rivers State and to find out the extent to which information professionals utilized emerging technologies for improved service delivery in public university libraries in Rivers State. The population consists of 50 information professionals in the three universities; University of Port Harcourt (20), Rivers State University (19) and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (11) respectively. A sample size of 50 information professionals in the universities representing 100% of the population served as respondents. An accidental sampling technique was used for the study. All the information professionals that make up the population were used. A 12-item questionnaire was used for data collection. Cronbach alpha statistics was used to obtain the 0.77 reliability coefficient of the instrument. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while the z-test statistics were used to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. The result amongst others revealed that social network websites technologies and video-based communication platforms like the Zoom and WebEx are in use in both Federal and State library but digital reference robots, library automation SOUL software and Protocols VoIP (Voice over Internet) was not in use in both Federal and State university libraries. It was recommended that university management should give the required attention to library use, provide and encourage the application of digital reference robots, library automation SOUL software and Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) and other current gadgets to be used to meet the demand of library users, most especially at this period of post covid-19 pandemic.

CO-CAC: A new approach to Call Admission Control for VoIP in 5G/WiFi UAV-based relay networks

Voice over IP (VoIP) requires a Call Admission Control (CAC) mechanism in WiFi networks to preserve VoIP packet flows from excessive network delay or packet loss. Ideally, this mechanism should be integrated with the operational scenario, guarantee the quality of service of active calls, and maximize the number of concurrent calls. This paper presents a novel CAC scheme for VoIP in the context of a WiFi access network deployed with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that relay to a backhaul 5G network. Our system, named Codec-Optimization CAC (CO-CAC), is integrated into each drone. It intercepts VoIP call control messages and decides on the admission of every new call based on a prediction of the WiFi network’s congestion level and the minimum quality of service desired for VoIP calls. To maximize the number of concurrent calls, CO-CAC proactively optimizes the codec settings of active calls by exchanging signaling with VoIP users.We have simulated CO-CAC in a 50m × 50m scenario with four UAVs providing VoIP service to up to 200 ground users with IEEE 802.11ac WiFi terminals. Our results show that without CAC, the number of calls that did not meet a minimum quality level during the simulation was 10% and 90%, for 50 and 200 users, respectively. However, when CO-CAC was in place, all calls achieved minimum quality for up to 90 users without rejecting any call. For 200 users, only 25% of call attempts were rejected by the admission control scheme. These results were narrowly worse when the ground users moved randomly in the scenario.

Assessing the current state of university-based business incubators in Canada

This paper explores the current state of university-based business incubators (UBIs) in Canada by utilizing both secondary and primary data obtained through desk-based secondary research and semi-structured interviews with UBI managers, academics, and support staff. These data informed the development of nine cases of UBIs in Canada. The data were collected from VoIP (Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol) based semi-structured interviews with 32 participants during the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2021–February 2022), from which 9 cases were developed during the pandemic. The key themes derived from the findings were the development of communication skills, curriculum development, extra-curricular activities, industry engagement, innovation, research skills and strategic thinking. The originality of this study lies in its identification of the current state of UBI activities as well as its assessment of the broad range of activities and provisions among Canadian UBIs. The empirical development of showcasing these initiatives is also novel for the efficacy of UBIs concerning institutional and managerial decision-making and operational planning. There are implications for academics, senior management in higher education, entrepreneurs, policymakers and other stakeholders in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Performance Evaluation of Selected Adaptive Filters for Acoustic Echo Cancelation over Voice over Internet Protocol

Advancement of technology has increased the value of the telecommunications industry. One of the services with the rapid growth is Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). However, echo is a common disturbing effect in VoIP calls. Instead of suppressing the presence of echo in the VoIP communication channel, echo cancellation works better in full-duplex mode. This paper compares performances of some selected adaptive filters for cancelation of acoustic echo in VoIP channel. The framework for adaptive echo cancellation is built around finite impulse response and fourth-order infinite impulse response Chebyshev type II filters for the modeling of echo and acoustic environment, respectively. Selected adaptive algorithms for analysis are least mean square, recursive least square and frequency domain adaptive filter. The analysis is carried out in MATLAB 2018a environment. Echo return loss enhancement, error estimate and convergence rate are the performance indices employed for performance comparison of selected adaptive algorithms. It was found that the FDAF algorithm performed best based on computed error return loss enhancement and error estimate figures. In addition, FDAF converges faster than LMS and RLS with average time of 0.026431 s over 2048 filter lengths. Thus, FDAF shows a better promise over the two variants of time domain adaptive algorithm (LMS and RLS) analyzed in this paper.

Adaptive QoS-Aware Multi-Metrics Gateway Selection Scheme for Heterogenous Vehicular Network

A heterogeneous vehicular network (HetVNET) is a promising network architecture that combines multiple network technologies such as IEEE 802.11p, dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), and third/fourth generation cellular networks (3G/4G). In this network area, vehicle users can use wireless fidelity access points (Wi-Fi APs) to offload 4G long-term evolution (4G-LTE) networks. However, when using Wi-Fi APs, the vehicles must organize themselves and select an appropriate mobile gateway (MGW) to communicate to the cellular infrastructure. Researchers are facing the problem of selecting the best MGW vehicle to aggregate vehicle traffic and reduce LTE load in HetVNETs when the Wi-Fi APs are unavailable for offloading. The selection process utilizes extra network overhead and complexity due to the frequent formation of clusters in this highly dynamic environment. In this study, we proposed a non-cluster adaptive QoS-aware gateway selection (AQAGS) scheme that autonomously picks a limited number of vehicles to act as LTE gateways based on the LTE network’s load status and vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) application’s QoS requirements. The present AQAGS scheme focuses on highway scenarios. The proposed scheme was evaluated using simulation of Urban mobility (SUMO) and network simulator version 2 (NS2) simulators and benchmarked with the clustered and non-clustered schemes. A comparison was made based on the end-to-end delay, throughput, control packet overhead (CPO), and packet delivery ratio (PDR) performance metrics over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) applications. Using VoIP, the AQAGS scheme achieved a 26.7% higher PDR compared with the other schemes.

Assessing the Current State of University-based Business Incubators (UBIS) in Canada and the UAE

There is a dearth of published research that explores UBIs from a comparative dimension across geographical and institutionalised contexts that assesses the current state and scope of UBI activities. This paper explores the current state of University-based Business Incubators (UBIs) both in the United Arab Emirates and Canada underpinned by a comparative case analysis approach. This study utilises both secondary and primary research data that was obtained through desk-based secondary research and qualitative methods of inquiry (semi-structured interviews) with UBI managers, academics, and support staff that were used to develop each case. This informed the development of 18 cases of UBIs in the United Arab Emirates and Canada (9 each, respectively). The data was collected through VoIP (Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol) and telephone during the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2021 to February 2022. The findings of the study illustrate that the Canadian context offers similar provisions of services for business incubators (BIs) but in comparison, the UAE-based university UBIs are much younger and are transitioning towards the development of various business and enterprise initiatives in Higher Education and are also focused on driving student recruitment using this provision. The value of thisstudy is inherent in its comparative approach between two under-studied and represented empirical geographies (i.e., Canada and the UAE), the findings also indicate the divergence and specialisms adopted by institutions in the UAE based on the various provisions for the governmental vision 2030, and the empirical development of showcasing these initiatives to be novel for the efficacy of UBIs.

Voice over Internet Protocol over Wireless Local Area Network: A Review

The use of Voice over Wireless Local Area Network is seeing a meteoric rise in popularity as a result of its simplicity, non-intrusiveness, and cheap cost of implementation, as well as its low cost of maintenance, universal coverage, and fundamental roaming capabilities. Nevertheless, deploying Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) over Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is a challenging task for many network managers, architects, planners, designers, and engineers. Because of this, there is a need for a guideline to design, model, and simulate the network before it is deployed. In this work, a variety of models, including mathematical, theoretical, statistical, and graphical models, that are used to measure the quality and features of VoIP are discussed.

Automated Speech Audiometry for Integrated Voice Over Internet Protocol Communication Services.

Problems in speech recognition are often apparent in telecommunication situations. For ecologically valid assessments of such conditions, it is important to quantify the impact of real environments including acoustic conditions at a far-end communication device and all paths of transmission degradation. This study presents an automated matrix sentence test procedure based on automatic speech recognition (ASR) integrated in a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure and compares the individual effects of transmission degradations with results from laboratory measurements. Speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) were measured in 16 normal-hearing subjects in four test conditions: (a) a laboratory condition guided by a human experimenter, (b) a laboratory condition with reduced bandwidth and (c) additionally reduced headset quality to simulate typical communication systems, and (d) an automated, ASR-controlled adaptive test procedure over a real VoIP infrastructure. Errors of the ASR system were analyzed to show possible effects on measurement outcome Results: Measured SRTs showed a highly significant correlation (r = .93) between the fully automatic and "laboratory" conditions, with a constant bias of about 1 dB indicating a linear shift of the data without affecting the distribution around the mean. The individual impact of the different system degradations on SRTs could be quantified Conclusions: This study provides a proof of concept for automated ASR-based SRT measurements over VoIP systems for speech audiometric testing in real communication systems, as it produced results comparable to traditional laboratory settings for this group of 16 normal-hearing subjects. This makes VoIP services a promising candidate for speech audiometric testing in real communication systems.

A typical analysis of hybrid covert channel using constructive entropy analytics

<p><span>A covert timing channel is based on modulation of the timing information in the network packets in a secured communication. The delicacy of this channel is primarily viewed as single coherent channel thwart the detection from any third-party entity or network admin. The timing covert channel is strenuous to detect under many scenarios due to the intricate complexity of the channel. The exploration of timing covert channel shed light on intrinsic design aspects which elevate understanding to an advanced level. This will effectively bring out elite literature aspects of the timing covert channel for seamless implementation. Supraliminal channels are innocuous message-based channel introduced as a trapdoor in the communication system either intentional or as vulnerability of the system. A hybrid covert channel is the existence of homogeneous or heterogeneous network covert channel variants either at same instant or at different instant of time. For instance, one of possible hybrid covert channel is the co-existence of timing covert channel in transmission control protocol (TCP) and supraliminal channel in voice over internet protocol (VoIP). This paper introduces this variant of the hybrid covert channel and their significance in network communication. The paper also refers to standard measures-entropy, covertness index to understand hybrid covert channel.</span></p>

Information Technology and Repositioning of Human Resource Management Functions

Technological developments have an impact on business development. Almost all business functions must make changes to anticipate them. This fact becomes a challenge for business practitioners and academics who study management science. A concrete example that shows the impact of technological advances on the business world is the development of VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). In response to this, business transformation is an urgent thing to do. Advances in information technology have an impact on changing business organizations from a hierarchical business organization to a leaner business organization. The transformation of the HRM role has led to several new concepts in contemporary HRM practice. The repositioning of the HRM function is also an anticipation of changes in the global business environment. The repositioning of the HRM function from an academic point of view should trigger more comprehensive research in analyzing this process.

Stop bugging me! Evading modern-day wiretapping using adversarial perturbations

Mass surveillance systems for voice over IP (VoIP) conversations pose a great risk to privacy. These automated systems use learning models to analyze conversations, and calls that involve specific topics are routed to a human agent for further examination. In this study, we present an adversarial-learning-based framework for privacy protection for VoIP conversations. We present a novel method that finds a universal adversarial perturbation (UAP), which, when added to the audio stream, prevents an eavesdropper from automatically detecting the conversation’s topic. As shown in our experiments, the UAP is agnostic to the speaker or audio length, and its volume can be changed in real time, as needed. Our real-world solution uses a Teensy microcontroller that acts as an external microphone and adds the UAP to the audio in real time. We examine different speakers, VoIP applications (Skype, Zoom, Slack, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams), and audio lengths. Our results in the real world suggest that our approach is a feasible solution for privacy protection.

Analysis of interferometric configuration for optical devices

Abstract With the exponential growth in information related applications and the continuous increase in voice over IP (VoIP) applications, the carriers are expanding their networks to provide improved services to their end users. In such cases, the synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy model is not suitable. In this work, we are going to investigate the electro optic switch with the help of a VB script to simulate the device for various parameters. Further, we will then scan the central electrode voltages and take account of the overlap integral taking place at the output port with the help of waveguide mode. The best switching for switches at different voltages so as to have negligible coupling loss for different input signals is investigated. We aim to evaluate the MZI switches with the Li-Tn channel profile wave guiding structure and confirm their performance as compared to the existing MZI switches.

A comprehensive study on radio over fiber systems: present evaluations and future challenges

Abstract In order to serve the explosive demands of triple play services or multimedia services with high quality of data transmission in Fifth Generation (5G) communication systems which has availability of large spectrum unlike Fourth Generation (4G), low latency, improved transmission, and increased reliability, an access networks with optical fiber distribution network and wireless enabled technology is urgently needed and therefore, a prominent technology known as Radio over Fiber (RoF) is suggested by researcher/Scientists due to a perfect blend of flexible fiber technology and wireless mobility. RoF technology is helping the data transmission systems from last thirty years with great success and has numerous advantages such as scalability, transparency, antenna site complexity reduction, low installation cost, accessibility of radio carrier by diverse antenna sites dynamically. Millimeter waves (Mm waves) integration in 5G wireless RoF systems comes out to be an encouraging candidate to cater the bandwidth hungry current as well as future generation internet application such as high definition TV (HDTV), online games, video conferencing, and voice over IP (VoIP) etc. For the prolonged reach, economical installations, and improved performance, optimal Mm wave generation methods should be incorporated in 5G such as employing multi carrier generation technique (MCG). Deployment of single mode fiber (SMF) in 5G offers high speed, large capacity, improved security, etc., but also has a prominent limitation of nonlinear effects and it is unwanted phenomenon which degrade the system performance by introducing intermodulation distortion, distortion of signal phase, harmonic distortion, and interference in the neighbouring channels. Minimum modifications of architecture and minimum cost should be spent on the compensation of nonlinear effects or Kerr’s effects in RoF systems and recently mode division multiplexing has emerged as an ultimate solution. In this review article, detailed discussion of an evolutionary technology, i.e., RoF is presented with a literature review, present evaluations, and future challenges. Our utmost goal is to enrich the young researchers with precious aspects for RoF technology on single platform and also encourage them to conduct the technology advancement research works in various fields such as nonlinear compensation, Mm wave generation, dispersion compensation, cost reduction, complexity reduction, and security enhancements for 5G RoF systems.

Novel Method of Reducing the Allocated Bandwidth by Voip

Abstract Old telecommunication systems are gradually being replaced by a new system that works over IP networks, which is known as voice over internet protocol (VoIP). VoIP has several merits (e.g., very cheap call rate), which make it increasingly popular in the telecommunication world. However, VoIP faces numerous impediments that decelerate its promotion. One of the top impediments is the wasted bandwidth caused by VoIP systems. Numerous methods have been proposed to handle this impediment, including packet aggregation methods. This paper proposes a novel aggregation method, called packet aggregation and carrier header (PA-CH), to reduce the amount of the large bandwidth caused by VoIP. As the name suggests, PA-CH saves in bandwidth by aggregating the packets in a header and using the redundant fields in the packet header to carry a portion of the packet voice data. The performance of the introduced PA-CH method was investigated based on three main metrics, namely, link capacity, allocated bandwidth reduction, and voice data shortening. Simulation results indicate that the proposed PA-CH method outperforms the comparison methods in three factors. For instance, the proposed method’s allocated bandwidth reduction ratio reaches 51% when the number of calls running concurrently reaches 100. Therefore, the proposed PA-CH method achieves its goal of reducing the wasted bandwidth caused by VoIP.

Evolutionary model to guarantee quality of service for tactical worldwide interoperability for microwave access networks

The smart phone industries evolution had made the growth in wireless communication. The increase in social media usage led to huge increase of network traffic as sharing of data for multimedia like video conferencing, and voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Majority of services like this requires network resources and real-time strict quality of service (QoS). However high cost of network deployment is included. All the major service providers are currently being adopted to the WiMAX 802.16 network. Therefore, the worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) network must have different supply policies and QoS for various applications. The implementation of these QoS policies was not provided by WiMAX for various needs of application. Recently development of various scheduling mechanism for QoS provisioning has been made. However, users improper synchronization made these models inefficient. To address this, uplink scheduling with feedback is considered to provision QoS. However, it induces delay in accessing slots, as result the bandwidth is wasted. To utilize bandwidth efficiently evolutionary computing is adopted by various existing model. However, these models induce computation overhead and may not be suitable for provisioning real-time services. The evolutionary computing model is used to compute ideal threshold.