Today Jeff Pulver posted a blog entry giving his sense that HDVoice will spark a renaissance in the VoIP world. He feels that carriers will be able to differentiate themselves on the basis of quality and earn customer loyalty. He’s outright enthusiastic about HDVoice.
I find Jeff’s focus in this area encouraging. Jeff has a lot of clout and could help push wideband telephony into the thoughts of people who might otherwise pass it by.
The term “HDVoice” is wholly inappropriate as its trademarked by Polycom. I prefer to use the term “wideband telephony.”
One comment on Jeff’s Facebook page is fairly telling of the public perception of VoIP in general.
The real question I have Jeff, is whether we’ll have toll quality (or better) VoIP calls. Achieving better-than-cell quality is easy, even with two tin cans and a piece of string – but beating the equivalent of a full 64kbps call will be tough, IMHO. (One could argue that using G.711 would do the trick – but that seems hardly optimal.)
This is obviously someone who has never heard a wideband call. Lets banish the term “toll quality” from our vocabulary. In the face of wideband calling “toll quality” is simply a misnomer. Why listen to AM radio when you can listen to FM?
G.711 will, at best, be the equivalent of a POTS line…never better. There is an enhanced G.711 codec but its enhancements primarily adapt it to better deal with packet networks.
OTOH, genuine wideband capable codecs (G.722, G.722.1, G.722.1, G.719, AMR-WB, CELT, SPEEX-WB) simply sound dramatically better.
Wideband telephony is not just the stuff of theory. It’s being done today!
I’ve done it. So have many others.
You should, too!