Graves on SOHO Technology

It appears that HDVoice is making considerable strides in the UK. Orange recently launched HDVoice calling for their mobile users, offering a selection of three HD-capable (AMR-WB) handsets from Nokia. The HDVoice section of their web site highlights the difference in call quality nicely.

Further, their new service caught the attention of the BBC, who offers yet another nice online example of HD vs PSTN call quality.

Step ahead just one week and we find that XConnect has announced their HD Voice Exchange peering effort is now available globally. In addition, they have joined in partnership with Polycom, Broadsoft and Dialogic in a new effort to promote the increased adoption of HDVoice by UK-based ITSPs.

Doug Mohney has a nice summary of the situation over at HDVoiceNews. Dean Elwood has a UK perspective to offer as well.

Some would say that HDVoice is my major passion. I’m not sure that this is true, but I will admit that I grow increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of PSTN audio I encounter in the course of life.

I am especially aggravated by radio & TV stations that use the PSTN to pass production audio. It’s as if they simply don’t care about the technical quality of their broadcast. Why not just give every reporter an old Sony Walkman style cassette recorder? That would actually sound better than a phone call in many cases.

I accept that for call-in style radio shows the PSTN is still the primary means of connecting to the audience, and many people will use cell phones as a matter of convenience. Given these facts audio quality is going to be variable…never great…and often very bad indeed. However, for cases where there is a reporter the field, or passing audio between remote studios, there are much better options.

Last month a reader question prompted a short investigation of how you might leverage wideband (HDVoice) telephony in support of a podcast or online radio show.

This past week I was tasked with working a booth at the Texas Association of Broadcasters annual convention and exhibition in Austin. While at the show I stumbled upon Tieline Technology, a company that makes IP-based wideband audio connective gear for radio & TV stations.

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Friend and VUC sponsor E4 Technologies yesterday announced a promotion on the HDVoice capable Polycom SoundPoint IP335 desk phone. Normally offered at $138.95 they are selling them for a mere $118 each when you checkout using the promo code VUC335. The offer is good for one week only, or as long as inventory lasts.

Want to know more about the SoundPoint IP335? I had a good long look at it earlier this year when it was launched.

This series presents an overview of the Gigaset SIP/DECT systems offered in North America for 2010.

• Part 1: Features common to the entire famly
• Part 2: The entry-level A58H handset
• Part 3: The C59H handset
• Part 4: The middle-of-the-range S67H handset
• Part 5: The upper mid-range S79H handset
• Part 6: The high-end SL78H handset
• Part 7: The Gigaset Quick Sync software utility

The final installment in the series is awaiting an upgrade to Outlook 2007 at my place of employment. The Gigaset Quicksync software will sync contacts with Outlook 2007, but not the older 2003 variant that we presently use.

Doug Mohney is spending this week in Las Vegas at DEFCON 18. I understand that today he was to give a presentation entitled “HDVoice –  The Overdue Revolution.”

I surely do wish that I was able to attend DEFCON and see Doug’s session, but my vacation plans were firm before I knew about what he was doing. I’m told that the DEFCON sessions were recorded and will eventually be made available for download.

Doug’s presentation includes a couple of the wideband audio examples with accompanying video clips of the energy vs frequency display from Cool Edit Pro. These are two examples from my Astricon 2009 presentation on HDVoice. The material for that presentation eventually made it online in several parts.

I’m happy to help people spread the gospel of HDVoice. I look forward to hearing Doug’s presentation when I’m back in action next week.

This morning I received a very interesting question from a reader:

I am looking for an IP phone that supports G.722 and has audio inputs / outputs so I can connect it to my mixer. We are trying to connect two studios together for an online radio station. I have yet to find anything other than high end Polycom gear that has something like RCA in/out jacks. Have you by any chance come across anything?

Soljon Zool
Citizen Media Group

While not usually of concern to a small office or home office such issues are routine in broadcasting, which remains how I earn my living. Further, if you’ve read much around here you’ve probably realized that lousy audio quality on radio call-in shows is one of my pet peeves. Even online radio operators should be concerned about audio quality.

Finally, this is a novel application for HDVoice. It’s not something that I’ve done previously, so it caught my interest.

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There can be no question that Counterpath is the leader in SIP soft phones. From the free offering in X-Lite to my favorite Eyebeam, and finally Bria they’ve long had a diverse offering and occupied a leadership position in the market.

In a move to strengthen the diversity of their range today Counterpath announced the launch of Bria 3.0 for Linux. This gives them a native release on Windows, Mac & Linux, which is a considerable achievement.

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This addition to this series is not like those that have come previously. All of the prior companies profiled are VoIP service providers that provide a degree of connectivity to the legacy public switched telephone network (PSTN), often as paid aspect of their service.

SIP Sorcery is very different. SIP Sorcery started out known as “My SIP Switch.” It’s an open source project created by Aaron Clauson, who describes it as a “SIP service aggregator.”

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Last week longstanding VoIP blogger and fellow Canuck Alec Saunders penned a nice post on the Calliflower Blog offering a collection of guidance for podcasters called “10 Podcaster Tips!” It’s a good read…not long…you should go read it now…then come back here. I’ll wait.

Over the past few years I’ve listened to a number of Alec’s Squawkbox podcasts, even attended a handful live & in-person. I respect and admire the man.

Taken in the context of the Calliflower conference service Alec’s post provides some sound, well-considered advice. Even so, I find there to be merit recasting it in a broader context and revisiting some of his points.

By “broader context” I mean specifically considering how someone could record a better sounding podcast by bypassing the legacy public switched telephone network (PSTN).

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On the VUC call of May14th we were fortunate to be joined by Tony Lewis, CEO of Schmooze Communications, the creators of PBXact. Tony was, to the best of my knowledge, the very first person to join the call using Aastra’s latest uber-desk-phone, the 6739i.

Tony was able to fill us in on some of more details about Aastra’s product line, and specifically their implementation of wideband voice…or as they call it “Hi-Q.”

It was just over a year ago that there was a hint that Aastra has released some firmware for their existing 57 series phones that implemented G.722 wideband capability. However, like snom before them, they were adding wideband voice support to a hardware platform that was not from the outset designed around such capability.

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