Operators worldwide are rolling out high definition voice (HD-Voice) services, with 32 networks and 52 devices released at the time of writing. Along with high-speed data, video and applications, HD-Voice is a major new enhancement to the subscriber experience, and a competitive differentiator for service providers. In the U.K., ‘3' and Orange offer HD-Voice today.
This service is based on an evolution from narrowband telephony (300Hz-3400Hz) to wideband speech transmission (50Hz-7000Hz). The codecs for wideband are ready and approved by the standardization bodies (G.722.2 AMR-WB based on AMR, EVRC-WB based on EVRC-B as well as ITU-T G.729.1 which is the wideband extension of ITU-T G.729), the handsets are powerful enough and the core networks are being upgraded to support new transmission loads.