Voice communications over zigbee networks

Author

Wang, Chonggang ; Sohraby, Kazem ; Jana, Rittwik ; Ji, Lusheng ; Daneshmand, Mahmoud

Author_Institution

Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Volume

46

Issue

1

fYear

2008

fDate

1/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

121

Lastpage

127

Abstract

This article provides an overview of ZigBee-enabled wireless networks and discusses the feasibility of supporting voice communications over ZigBee networks. We begin by providing an overview of the ZigBee technology followed by an evaluation of voice quality and performance over such an impoverished wireless channel. Two types of voice communications, namely full-duplex voice over IP (VoIP) and half-duplex push-to-talk (PTT) are considered. Voice quality of VoIP is measured using the R-factor [1] (a well known objective speech quality metric). The quality of PTT, however, is evaluated based on packet-loss rate, delay, and jitter. The simulation results demonstrate that a low-power, low-rate wireless sensor network can support a limited range of voice services.

Keywords

Internet telephony; personal area networks; quality of service; voice communication; wireless channels; wireless sensor networks; PTT; R-factor; VoIP; ZigBee-enabled wireless networks; full-duplex voice over IP; half-duplex push-to-talk; impoverished wireless channel; packet-loss rate; speech quality metric; voice communications; voice quality evaluation; voice services; wireless sensor network; Back; Batteries; Multiaccess communication; Network topology; Physical layer; Radio frequency; Radio transmitters; Sleep; Spread spectrum communication; ZigBee;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MCOM.2008.4427240

Filename

4427240