Late last week I took an hour to sit through a Voxeo webinar on the impact of IP v6 on SIP communications. It was the latest in their series of Developer Jam Session presentations.
Dan York presented a nice introduction to the issues surrounding IP v6 implementation with respect to real-time communication using SIP. If you’re new to IP v6, as I am, then the recording of that session is a recommended resource.
Few things get me as agitated as the flagrant spreading of disinformation on the part of the plainly ignorant or apathetic. How’s that as an opening line for an argument? Well, it’s a fact.
As mentioned previously, recent weeks have seen some developments in the war against low-def voice. HDVoice service in the UK is getting easier to find, even in the mobile space.
This is very encouraging. Like the adoption of color TV, or music on CD, or video on DVD, the publics exposure to the new technology will create demand where once the established industry players thought there would be none.
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…
It’s no secret that I’ve been living with a couple of Polycom VVX-1500 Business Media Phones around my office for the past few months. My review of these devices will shortly run over at Small Net Builder.
This is one of the few times that 3000 words seemed like a problem. That is, I could use more space to get into more detail about the devices. Perhaps we’ll run a follow-up later on. That’d be great, presuming that I get to run a trial installation of the phones as I hope.
Anyway, Media Phones. It’s a whole new category. It’s like the iPhone for the home or office. That includes some other devices that I’ve shown interest in, like the Verizon HUB from Open Peak, and Glass from Cloud Telecomputers (pictured).
Analysts In-Stat have published a report on media phones. It’s free. Go fetch it. I’ll wait.
Question: What was the first HDVoice product that Polycom offered?
Answer: The Polycom VTX 1000 conference phone.
The thing that makes this fact so curious is not immediately obvious. The VTX 1000 is not a SIP device, nor even IP capable. Like it’s closest relative the Polycom SoundStation 2, it’s designed to connect to a plain old analog phone line (a.k.a. POTS, the PSTN).
Of course, the common wisdom is that you just can’t have wideband telephony over the PSTN. Yet the VTX 1000, circa 2003, delivers wideband conference calls so it seems that assertion is not strictly true. Understanding this is in a little more depth would seem like a good thing. Happily, Polycom published a white paper describing the internals of the VTX 1000.
Over at VoIP Supply’s VoIP Insider Cory Andrews poses a good question, ” When Will HD Audio Come to Mobile Phones?” He frames it up in the context of having first hand experience with enterprise class wideband hardware like the new Polycom VVX-1500 Media Phone, but then recasts the question in the mobile space.
With 3G here and 4G coming, the bandwidth is certainly there to support HD calling on mobile devices. Seems all that is currently lacking is a traditional carrier or mobile VoIP provider and a handset manufacturer with a wireless device that supports G.722 or alternative wideband codecs. I wonder if there are existing mobile phone devices with a large deployed base that could be made “HD capable” via firmware update?
I’m certainly not an expert in all facets of the technology involved, but I have been investigating wideband for some time, and tapping many sources along the way. After a while all the little pieces of information start to form a more complete picture of what’s involved.