The
origin of the technical challenge was really the quality of voice reproduction
on mobile phones – poor at the best of times.
Like me, you may have seen that downside as the inevitable cost of
mobility but the increasing bandwidth available on modern networks has allowed
the handset makers to address the problem.
4G-capable
smartphones (and a few 3G handsets) are increasingly being equipped with
so-called HD Voice calling, which extends the audio
frequency range to something closer to that of the human voice (and also helps
to suppress background noise). The implementation
of HD Voice has been frustrated by the obvious compatibility problems: essentially, both handsets (calling and receiving)
and the connecting base station all need to be enabled for HD. Nonetheless, most of the mobile networks
have now
introduced this functionality.
While the
mobile networks were the initial focus of HD, I was surprised to see that the
technology has also been applied in the fixed sector. Is that necessary? Well, if you’ve ever tried to conduct a
conference call through a conventional ‘squawk box’, you’ll understand the need
for a better solution – particularly if one or more participants is using a
mobile phone. The trick here has been to
introduce Dolby noise suppression techniques to improve audio reception. Dolby also claim that their audio separation
technology makes it much easier to distinguish between the voices of speakers at
the other end of the call. Still not
convinced? Then let me refer you to the
news that BT is now incorporating this Dolby-enhanced HD technology in its
latest generation of conferencing hardware.
Voice lives
on…
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