HD Voice Will Revolutionize the Telephone Industry and Improve Mobile Phone Safety
by:
James Waldrop
Have you ever wondered why driving and talking to someone in the car seat next to you is not nearly as distracting as driving and talking to someone on your mobile phone? The answer is simply related to frequency range. Mobile phones, landlines and most Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls only transmit a narrow portion of the human voice sound spectrum. This puts our brains to work filling in the gaps, deciphering sounds and separating out background noise which distracts us from our current chore like driving. Enter wideband voice.
The current technology of the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN is approximately 100 years old. It takes 8,000 samples per second of sounds within the microphones range from 200Hz to 3,300Hz which is known as narrowband. By contrast, the human voice sound spectrum ranges from 80Hz to 14,000Hz. This leaves many gaps in what we hear from the caller on the other end of the phone. Throw in some background noise and it can become quite difficult to distinguish the nuances between several sounds in spoken language.
Wideband voice, commonly referred as HD Voice as trademarked by Polycom, attempts to solve the problem. Wideband voice is not exactly new technology as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standardized a version of wideband audio as G.722 in 1987. It takes 16,000 sound samples per second of the frequency range 50Hz to 7,000Hz. In other words, it doubles the sampling rate and more than doubles the frequency range.
Benefits of Wideband Voice
*Significantly improved voice quality. Have you heard the difference on the radio between a broadcaster at a remote location versus someone calling in from a plain telephone? The remote radio broadcaster uses the G.722 Codec to provide high quality audio transmissions from remote locations.
*Less Fatigue and increased productivity. Talking on the phone all day creates fatigue because of the increased brain function required to determine what people are saying. Wideband audio makes it easier to understand accented speakers, recognize voices and distinguish confusing sounds. It is also easier to understand people using speakerphones or have noise in the background.
*Fewer Errors. Wideband voice makes it easier to decipher words that have close sounds such as ‘m' and ‘n' or ‘s' and ‘f' and others. An obvious example is giving an e-mail address over the phone and the difficulty in making sure that it has been transcribed correctly.
Availability of Wideband Voice
Wideband voice is not widely available at this time. All calls that go over the PSTN use narrowband. It is important to note that in order to conduct a wideband voice phone call both ends must support wideband voice all the way through the network.
G.722.2 Codec has been designated as the wideband for the 3rd generation of mobile phones (commonly known as 3G). It has been deployed by some mobile carriers in Europe with only a few phones available which use it.
In Europe, some Hosted VoIP Providers have successfully implemented a system of SIP enabled services checking for an available SIP address before placing calls over the PSTN. The FCC appears to have stymied any such efforts in the US.
In the US, it is available on some IP enabled business telephone systems and a select few Hosted PBX / Hosted VoIP Providers. The most available applications are for internal office use which benefits communications specifically with remote workers and between remote offices.
The quality of wideband voice or HD Voice is truly amazing. Once you experience it, you will see that it has the potential to revolutionize telephone communications.
About the Author:
Please visit our website at
http://www.hostmycalls.com to learn more about HD Voice or wideband voice on our Hosted PBX service. You will also find our award winning (and free) Packet Loss Test (http://www.hostmycalls.com/tools/) which has become a crucial tool for finding trouble and making sure your Internet connection is ready for VoIP. You may also contact our knowledgeable sales engineers at 866-242-6161.
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