IMTC History

Headquartered in San Ramon , California , the IMTC was formed in September 1994 through a merger of The Consortium for Audiographics Teleconferencing Standards, Inc. (CATS) and the Multimedia Communications Community of Interest (MCCOI). CATS, formed in 1993, focused on the T.120 standards suite for multipoint data conferencing. MCCOI, also formed in 1993, focused on the ITU-T H.320 (ISDN) and H.324 (POTS) standards suites for multipoint video communications. In December 1995, the IMTC merged with the Personal Conferencing Work Group, Inc. (PCWG). The PCWG had also focused on multimedia teleconferencing standards as well as the needs of users of products and services in this category.

From the mid '90s, as the rich-media communications concept extended beyond traditional switched networks to include Internet Protocol (IP) networks, the IMTC acted as an industry convergence point for Voice, Data, and Video over IP. At that time IMTC's efforts resulted in the promulgation of the ITU-T H.323 (packet-based video) standard, agreement on the initial Voice over IP (VoIP) Implementation Framework, and the first integrated interoperability tests involving the ITU-T T.120, H.320, H.324, H.323 standards and emerging IETF requests for comments (RFCs) such as session initiation protocol (SIP).

Today, the IMTC retains its focus on addressing rich-media deployment obstacles and interoperability in wide area and enterprise networks. The initiatives IMTC sponsors now include IPv6, 3GPP technology, packet switched streaming techniques, enterprise network address translation (NAT)/firewall traversal, and wireless/mobility. Its efforts enable service providers and vendors to create more compatible rich-media products, applications and services, which in turn facilitate the widespread adoption of the offerings by protecting end-users' capital investments and meeting usability expectations.