Lucent Technologies licenses ePAC music coder to ClickRadio For Internet-enhanced digital radio service.

Exclusive deal for ePAC coder will deliver ClickRadio listeners secure, CD-quality music offline and online - including BMG Entertainment and Universal Music Group content MIDDLETOWN, N.J. -- Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) announced today that it has licensed the industry-leading Lucent Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coder (ePAC) to ClickRadio, Inc. for the company's free, personalized Internet-enhanced digital radio service. The ePAC system will enable ClickRadio to encode its wide range of music programming - including rock, hip-hop, jazz, blues, eclectic, alternative, country, dance, and many others - in a secure format that will deliver listeners the highest quality audio whether they are offline or online.
ClickRadio, which recently announced that it has secured interactive radio licenses from both Universal Music Group and BMG Entertainment, will launch its digital radio service later this month.
The ePAC coder will be incorporated exclusively into proprietary, patent-pending software from ClickRadio that listeners download to their PC hard drives so that they can play music directly from their PCs. Music and fan-friendly information about songs and artists will be updated automatically whenever an Internet connection is detected.
"We believe that ClickRadio has designed an ideal showcase service that will demonstrate the benefits of ePAC's security and audio quality for a large audience of dedicated Internet music listeners," said Joyce Eastman, vice president of audio initiatives for Lucent Technologies. "ClickRadio has delivered on the promise of interactive music through an innovative business model and a world-class team of music-industry executives and personalities and we are proud to be working with them as they launch this exciting new digital radio service." "We're excited to be working with Lucent to efficiently deliver music to users and create an entirely new system for listening to music," said Hank Williams, the founder and CEO of ClickRadio. 
"ClickRadio caches music directly on listeners' PCs, and because of Lucent's revolutionary ePAC technology, ClickRadio sounds significantly better than other Internet-based radio services, and unlike them, ClickRadio can be used whether the listener is offline or online." About ePAC The ePAC coder is based on patented technology developed at Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, and delivers CD-quality audio at 128 kilobits per second (Kb/s). ePAC has won wide acclaim in music circles over the past 3 years for its superior audio quality, which has been designated as the best 11-1 audio compression system by leading "golden ears" in the recording industry, and has been licensed to leading Internet music technology companies.

"The copyright protection afforded by ePAC provides an incentive to music companies to license their content to ClickRadio, and is a big reason why we've acquired interactive radio licenses from such industry leaders as Universal Music Group and BMG Entertainment," said David Benjamin, co-founder and Vice Chairman of ClickRadio.
Currently, ePAC is integrated into the Intel Software Integrity System, which is embedded in Preview Systems' secure music distribution system, and is licensed to The Orchard for its large online library of independent music. Lucent's ePAC coder is interoperable with RealNetworks' G2 Player and has been licensed to Lydstrom, Inc. for its Songbank home Internet stereo device. The ePAC coder will also be integrated into VedaLabs' AudioVeda secure jukebox.
ePAC is a new version of the Lucent Perceptual Audio Coder (PAC) -- the highest-quality digital audio codec in the industry -- developed by Bell Labs, the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies. PAC is an audio compression algorithm with the highest-quality audio at the lowest bit rates. At 128 kilobits per second, ePAC offers CD-transparent stereo sound. ePAC uses psychoacoustic modeling - that is, a representation of how humans hear sound - to compress music in a way that is not noticeable to the ear. Music is compressed at a rate of 11 to 1, thus reducing the transmission time/bandwidth and storage by the same ratio, while still retaining its fidelity.
Several recent improvements in ePAC have pushed its performance levels to new heights, including: ePAC's improved quantization and coding, allowing higher quality audio at lower bit rates, and ePAC's improved psychoacoustic modeling from Bell Labs research, which provides CD-transparent sound at 128 kbps.
ePAC's variable bit rates and superior audio quality allow the coder to be used in multiple bandwidth applications.
"Lucent's ePAC provides ClickRadio with a critical security advantage because it is the only leading compression technology for which there is no publicly available source code," said Al Hoover, chief technology officer of ClickRadio. "ePAC is also well-suited to efficient digital delivery of CD-quality music, regardless whether the listener uses a dial-up modem or high-speed broadband connection." About ClickRadio With ClickRadio's simple set of icons, listeners customize the music they hear: click Thumbs up (I want to hear this song more often), Thumbs down (I'd like to hear this song less), or Skip (later).
ClickRadio's music programming spans 25 popular categories or stations-- everything from Alternative, Rock, Dance, Pop, Hip-Hop, and Rap, to Country, Jazz, Latin, R&B, and the Blues. ClickRadio's playlists are assembled by a veteran team of MusicGuides, led by Charlie Kendall, that includes Scott Shannon, Patti Galluzzi, Max Tolkoff, and Marshall Chess.
Listeners can click the i (for information) icon to get artist bios, links to artist sites, tracks and album information. ClickRadio also offers listeners an easy way to organize their music by genre and then personalize stations.
ClickRadio is not Internet radio, streaming audio or a Web site.
ClickRadio's music is stored efficiently on a PC's hard drive.
Whenever a listener is connected to the Internet, ClickRadio will add and delete songs from the cache based on the listener's unique preferences. A listener only needs to be online for a few minutes at a time to receive new music.
ClickRadio is free to listeners. The service will feature less than half as many commercials as FM radio -- the ads will be less intrusive, but more compelling because they match listeners' interests. ClickRadio's dynamic audio will be combined with interactive features so listeners can click to learn more about a product, find the nearest location or go directly to a merchant's site when they have shopping in mind.
Based in New York and founded in 1998, ClickRadio has received funding from respected venture capital firms including Sierra, Telesoft and i-Hatch Ventures. The service will launch in May 2000 and its software will be widely distributed. Hank Williams, the Founder and CEO of ClickRadio, developed ClickRadio's patent-pending, proprietary technology. Veteran music industry attorney David Benjamin is Vice Chairman of ClickRadio. For more information about ClickRadio
About Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies' famed research and development arm, Bell Labs, has been at the forefront of technology for the music industry for decades, with the introduction of sound for motion pictures in 1926; the invention of stereo recording in 1933; the invention of the transistor in 1947; the introduction of computer-synthesized music in the 1950s; the introduction of psychoacoustics in the 1960s; sub-band coding of audio in the 1970s; the introduction of linear predictive coding in the 1980s, and the Perceptual Audio Coder in the 1990s.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers the systems, software, silicon and services for next-generation communications networks for service providers and enterprises. Backed by the research and development of Bell Labs, Lucent focuses on high-growth areas such as optical and wireless networks; Internet infrastructure; communications software; communications semiconductors and optoelectronics; Web-based enterprise solutions that link private and public networks; and professional network design and consulting services. For more information on Lucent Technologies