Character Dialogue #004# — Henning Schulzrinne
In the Internet Hall of Fame, there is a pioneer from the multimedia field: he led and developed the VoIP protocol, and made important contributions to the key network transport protocols in the multimedia field such as SIP, RTP and RTSP; He was a CTO and Senior Technical Advisor to the FEDERAL Communications Commission (FCC), where he worked on several Internet projects, including the Open Internet, network security, NG911, relay services for the hearing-impaired, telephone numbering, and Internet performance testing. He is also a professor in the computer science department at Columbia University, teaching courses such as _Advanced Internet Services_ and _Internet Technology_.
Henning Schulzrinne.
Henning Schulzrinne graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany before moving to the United States, where he earned a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Schulzrinne worked at Bell LABS from 1992 to 1994; From 1994 to 1996, he worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems in Berlin. In 1998, Schulzrinne officially joined Columbia University and began his teaching career.
In addition to teaching at Columbia, Schulzrinne has many different identities.
He is co-chair of the Internet Technology Committee of the IEEE Communications Society and editor of the Journal of Communications and Networks. From 2011 to 2014 Schulzrinne served as CTO and Senior Technology Advisor to the FEDERAL Communications Commission (FCC). In 2013, Schulzrinne was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame Innovators; In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in recognition of his contributions to the multimedia field of the Internet over the years. In 2016, he was awarded the IEEE Internet Award.
Schulzrinne has published more than 250 journal conference papers and more than 70 RFC standards.
In an interview, Schulzrinne was asked how he started working in the multimedia field on the Internet.
“I first became interested in audio and video coding because I did my master’s thesis on it. PC sound cards weren’t widely used for real audio acquisition at the time, so I had to use an A/D converter on A PDP-11/44 minicomputer to convert. As the Internet and early Sun workstations such as SPARC became available for real-time audio and video transmission, I began to work on developing and standardizing protocols such as RTP and SIP for audio and video transmission over the Internet. The widespread use of mobile devices has led to “ubiquitous systems”, including what is now widely known as IoT. (I started early designing software and hardware peripherals for small microcontrollers, such as the Z80 and 8051. So it was natural to work in the multimedia field. “
About the birth of SIP:
I was working on a PhD project called DARTnet, which transmitted audio and video on an experimental Overlay network using a new protocol, ST-II (now deprecated). Network nodes were early SPARC workstations (from SUN Microsystems) that could implement network routers and Overlay networks. The system needed tools and protocols to work, and I became actively involved in all kinds of audio and video technology — from creating protocols to transmit voice and video to developing algorithms for smooth playback. I was also involved when the IETF began developing the protocols needed to support multicast backbone, an early technology that could transmit audio and video to hundreds of viewers. These efforts led to the development of RTP. Originally designed for multicast, RTP has since been used for most “standards-based” audio and video transmissions, not just multicast. As the work matured, many of the people involved, myself included, decided there needed to be a better way to start audio and video sessions, and SIP was born. No one paid much attention to our group’s research because “real” telecom engineers were working on TDM circuit switches, whereas SIP was based on IP switching. It was to our advantage that there was no one to tell us what to do, and we did it relatively quickly. As the wired and wireless industries begin to recognize the need to move to IP networks, the underlying protocol standards required for SIP are practically in place.
As the Internet continues to evolve, Schulzrinne’s research focus in recent years has shifted to IoT, 5G, and video transmission, and he has spoken and lectured frequently on the subject.
Problem for
If you want to learn more about the birth of the early multimedia Network Transport protocol, if you want to explore the history of the multimedia field on the Internet, if you want to listen to Henning Schulzrinne on the development of multimedia technology today, if you want to learn about the current trends of IoT, If you want to have an in-depth conversation with this pioneer, welcome to LiveVideoStack’s People Talk.
Mr. Henning Schulzrinne has accepted our email interview invitation.
To thank our readers for their support of LiveVideoStack, we decided to give you the opportunity to ask some questions: please leave a comment below with your favorite questions, and we will send a selection of them to Mr. Schulzrinne in the United States, who will answer them for you.
This is a valuable opportunity to engage with some of the pioneers of the Internet. You are welcome to join us and ask Henning Schulzrinne questions that will impress him.
Deadline for questions: January 24, 2022
* Thanks to Mr. Du for proofreading this article.
Dialogue with past characters:
Dialogue with MPEG founder Leonardo Chiariglione: The MPEG spirit will live on in MPAI
Ron Frederick, RTP author: I’m looking forward to QUIC
Conversation with Justin Uberti: THE past, present and future of the RTC
Scan the QR code to learn more about the conference
