HD voice comes to Android, but can it really save voice revenues?

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HD voice comes to Android, but can it really save voice revenues?

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 17 November, 2009

READ MORE: Broadcom | VoIP | Android

High definition video may be one of the key applications for new networks, but who wants HD voice? Everybody will, once they hear it, according to Vonage founder Jeff Pulver, whose Free World Dial-up firm has launched a project called HD Connect to promote the technology. And several vendors are rising to the challenge of reversing the downward spiral of voice usage, luring users with the better quality and new IP applications enabled by HD voice.

Last week, Broadcom, the originator of the technology, put its BroadVoice codecs into open source in a bid to reduce the cost of HD VoIP and so encourage supporters, by eliminating royalties. Broadcom will offer two codecs - BroadVoice32 for wideband speech sampled at 16kHz, and BroadVoice16 for narrowband voice sampled at 8kHz.

But the real challenge is not so much to attract vendors with lower costs, but to encourage consumers to pay a bit extra for a higher quality call (especially as the highest growth voice platforms of recent years, VoIP and mobile, have delivered a weaker voice experience than dying wireline). However, Daniel Berninger, CEO of Free World Dial-up, believes there is a real market for premium VoIP. "Even if you think about the iPhone and how compelling that is, that's the same lousy voice," he said in an interview. By the end of 2010, when HD-enabled handsets should be readily available, it will start to be requested by discerning users, he argues, and by 2013 it will be ubiquitous.

And now HD voice is coming to Android, courtesy of Global IP Solutions (GIPS) of Norway, with its VoiceEngine Mobile. This will allow Android developers to build HD VoIP enabled clients, and the first company to sign up is Nimbuzz, maker of the free social networking app, which believes the technology could give it a competitive edge with no-cost, high quality calls, and could be integrated with other social features.

Before this, most of GIPS' efforts were focused on HD voice for the enterprise, promising to reduce or eliminate some of the most disliked aspects of regular VoIP, such as delay, jitter, packet loss, noise and echo. HD VoIP enables better sound quality by using voice energy outside the 3kHz frequency of traditional phone calls, and by using SIP and the G.722 wideband codec standard.

Most consumer HD voice has come from fixed line operators such as Cablevision subsidiary Optimum Lightpath, the first US provider to offer the services, and various European carriers. GIPS' VP of business development, Larry Golob, echoed Berninger's sentiments, saying that, even as the industry has moved to 3G and on to 4G, "and devices are getting smarter and smarter, one of the things that hasn't changed - and in some cases has gotten worse - is voice quality."

GIPS already offers mobile versions of its voice engine to Symbian and iPhone developers. This engine is distributed on an app-by-app basis rather than at device or OS level, so that a developer can work with it in a consistent manner across platforms.