International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC)

The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) is an organization consisting of several companies interested in real-time, rich-media communications. Rich media includes voice and one-way (or two-way) data and one-way (or two-way) video. Members of this community include Internet application developers and service providers, teleconferencing hardware and software suppliers and service providers, telecommunications service providers and equipment vendors, end users, educational institutions, government agencies and non-profit corporations. On July 28, 2014 IMTC and the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (UCIF) merged into one consortium. The UCI Forum defined interoperability profiles and certification tests, implementation guidelines, and best practices for interoperability between UC products and existing applications.

The IMTC focuses on:

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.

The IMTC initiated formal standards initiatives and testing programs (aka Plug fests) to improve interoperability of the products and services in the ecosystem.

From the mid-1990s, 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 3GPP, packet switched streaming techniques, enterprise network address translation 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.

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