Orange plans to bring 'HD Voice' calls to UK next year
By Donald Melanson 
posted December 31st 2009 10:29AM
posted December 31st 2009 10:29AM
We've had some indication that Orange planned to expand its "HD Voice" technology beyond the hot testbed of Moldova sometime in the coming year, and it looks like the carrier is now starting to get a bit more specific about when the UK will finally have an alternative to standard definition calls. Apparently, Orange will begin trials of the new and improved, 3G-facilitated service early in the new year, and fully roll it out along with a "range of handsets" before the end of the year. Just what can you expect from HD voice? Why, it will make it "sound as if callers are actually in the same room," according to Orange UK chief executive Tom Alexander, who further added that "HD voice really does inject a level of innovation into mobile phone calls," and that "once people have tried it, they won't want to go back."Update: Orange has now pushed out a press release further confirming that trials will begin in the UK early in the new year, with a nationwide rollout due "later in 2010." In related news, DigiTimes is reporting that Foxconn has landed large orders for Android-powered handsets from Orange, although Foxconn itself has issued something of a denial on the matter.
Again, why is EVERYTHING "HD" these days?
@AndroidRokz
Why not... Because its possible
@MoonWalkerCTE You dumbass
@AndroidRokz
Honestly, if I would want anything HD, it would be my phone line.
That being said, I really just want everything HD - including my vision.
@AndroidRokz
Yeah pretty soon we will hear of the Ultra-HD phone call. I think for people in the US with ATT a phone call in general would be nice.
@AndroidRokz
HD is the new black. Or was "Live" the new black and HD is the new Live?
...
@AndroidRokz
Because HD is a hype word used to sell products. Just like Super use to be. Super Phone Calls!
@AndroidRokz
I bet the HD quality is worse than what windows calls 'radio quality' (22KHz 16bit mono PCM)
Looked it up, what some like orange call HD voice is known as 'wideband audio" and wikipedia describes it thus:
Traditional, or narrowband telephone calls, limit audio frequencies to the range of 300 to 3400 hertz. Wideband audio eliminates the majority of bandwidth limitations and transmits in the range of 30 hertz to 7000 hertz or higher.
...
The 3GPP standards group has designated G.722.2 as its wideband codec and calls it Advanced Multirate – Wideband (AMR-WB). A few handsets have been produced supporting this codec (for example, Nokia), and network demonstrations have been conducted.
After years of trials, AMR-WB was made commercially available in September 2009, when Orange launched the world's first high-definition voice service for mobile phones in Moldova, the first time since the 1990s that mobile voice technologies have been subject to a significant evolution. The first mobile handset integrating high-definition voice capability launched by Orange Moldova is the Nokia 6720c, which integrates WB-AMR.
...
AMR-WB operates like AMR with 9 different bit rates. The lowest bit rate providing excellent speech quality in a clean environment is 12.65 kbit/s. Higher bit rates are useful in background noise conditions and for music. Also lower bit rates of 6.60 and 8.85 kbit/s provide reasonable quality especially if compared to narrow band codecs.
All modes are sampled at 16 kHz (using 14 bit resolution) and processed at 12.8 kHz.
@Wwhat I'm amazed that I never thought that we should upgrade audio quality in phone calls. Seems like an obvious evolution of technology.
'Bout time.
Most modern phones are very advanced and impressive in every area except for actually making phone calls, where little has changed in the last decade or so.
@Wolfticket Yup. *cough*iPhone*cough*
@Wolfticket
Thats not the iphones fault its at&t. I live in spain and I never had any connection issues.
@MoonWalkerCTE The flip-side of the argument being non-iPhone AT&T users based on comments here haven't had connection issues either.
@Wolfticket Yeah, this is really an obvious improvement. At the same time, I never, ever thought "hey I wish I had HD audio" - even just 10 minutes ago, when I could barely make out what the other party was saying because the audio was so bad. I have just so gotten used to bad quality...
Anyway: Yey! Let's hope it gets rolled out everywhere, and quickly.
i dunno.. i already came up with a few names on my contacts which i DO NOT want to hear in HD... now if there is an option for 'accidentally running out of signal on certain calls (without turning my phone off) that would be cool' :) it would sound more like an app though..
This should revive the phone sex industry.
HD calls is stupid.. it will b e outdated when BlueRay calls are introduced...
this format is dead...
ahahaah!
Anyway I dont think anyone wants to hear all the backround noises.. especially cheating partners... ugh!
@NAME
Some of you guys should stop posting here and seriously pursue stand up comedy. I am not sure Blue Ray jokes will make it but i am sure you have some additional material.
Seems like a waste of valuable network resources to me.
Been done. Failed miserably:
http://bart.tcc.virginia.edu/classes/tcc315/Resources/ALM/Telephone/truevoice.html
@(Unverified)
Actually, VoIP phones nowadays are supporting new standards, Polycom in particular. We have their phones here, and when you're on a wideband ("HD Voice") call with someone else in the office, it really does make a difference, and you really can tell.
Didn't AT&T do this a few years back for land lines?
I thought they were pushing better sound on their land lines, then the compitition.
I really think that this is the right move. I've been saying forever that they need to move to a wideband system. We're using 3Khz of bandwidth for voice calls. That's the same amount since the '60s. We've got huge 3G networks, and we're still only working with this small voice channel, which is why voice calls sound so bad compared to other recording formats.
It was a limitation in back then, but today, it really isn't. Especially with the advent of 3G, and even 4G, we will have more than enough bandwidth to bump up the voice call quality a little. VoIP systems have been doing this for a little while, that's why your Skype to Skype call sounds so clear compared to a cell phone or landline call.
It may initially seem like not much, but there really is great benefit in the intelligibility of calls once you expand to help include more consonant sounds. This is a paper by Polycom, and while it is to help them push their HD Voice calls on their phones, it is an excellent illustration of the reasons we need to improve our phone voice systems.
http://www.polycom.com/global/documents/whitepapers/effect_of_bandwidth_on_speech_intelligibility_2.pdf
almost certainly this is wide band AMR which handsets themselves have to support iirc, which at the moment the majority don't. More and more are of late but of course, the network has to too..
It's called AMR-WB, google it. Don't knock it if you haven't heard it. The only rip on it is that handsets need to support it!!! It's basically like making the jump from listening to cassettes to CD's. It's that good!
The voice codec being introduced is AMR-WB (wideband) as opposed to the current AMR-NB (narrowband). The WB codecs samples at 16kHz rather than today's 8 kHz used by all GSM/UMTS circuit switched voice codecs, hence providing you with effectively twice the audio bandwidth (~7.5kHz compared to today's ~3.5kHz). While AMR codecs are multi-rate, the actual bit rate typically chosen by the operators for this WB service is 12.65 kbps (the lowest WB rate), which is almost identical the the typical rate used fro NB calls today (being 12.2 kbps, the highest NB rate), hence there is no practical bandwidth penalty at all. And even at this lowest WB rate the intelligibility and comfort is so greatly improved that you won't wanna go back to NB calls (however you will fall back to legacy NB in many places initially). The much improved WB voice quality is merely just enabled by the new and more advanced voice codec.
However don't confuse the usage of AMR-WB codec for vocie calls with the same codec being available in many phones for file playback. These are entirely different use cases and systems.
@Setzer good technical info.
I guess
"Orange introduces AMR-WB (wideband) voice calls"
is not quite as catchy as
"Orange introduces HD Voice calls" :)
Yes, you gotta say something people understand.. :D
However there's a few thing that's gotta be in place before you actually make a wideband call:
* Both handsets needs to be WB enabled.
* Both callers needs to be connected via a WB enabled operator.
* Both callers needs to be in a WB enabled cell.
* Both callers will likely have to be connected in 3G mode (service later enabled for 2G mode).
If ANY of these conditions are not met the call will fall back to regular NB quality. Hence the likelyhood of yourself actually getting a WB call set up will initially unfortunately be quite low.
To be honest I think often phonecalls are more clear because of it limiting to what a human voice really produces, minus the heavier resonance that tends to obscure the actual words.
.
Who cares about the voice quality. It already does the job fine. Just give us more data bandwidth and reliability for a cheaper price and we're happy. Sheesh Orange!
Once they can do good sound-quality then sony can start to charge you if there's music in the background you see, it's a trap.
Does it use more bandwidth or is it just better compression? Either way I'm sold.
@Ethan
The wideband calls will typically use the a similar bit rate (~12 kbps) as the regular narrowband calls. The network operator dictates the actual rate to be run during the call, and since the WB codecs provides a much improved experience at a similar bit rate to NB they will initially stay there, since they're of course also conservative about that scarce bandwidth resource. However WB calls could be configured to run at up to 23.85 kbps for even better voice quality, but will not initially.
@Ethan
In Moldova it required 3G, so I'm guessing it uses more data:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/orange-introduces-hd-voice-calls-3g-moldovian-citizenship/
@Endadget It's more likely not to do with the bandwidth but the pass-through support for the codec. As voice calls move to become VOIP at all points (in the UK, BT's new system is moving everything to IP) there is a requirement for codec support at all points in the connection.
If the codec was not supported on the tower you would (probably) have to do pass to a voice gateway to lower the codec spec and pass to a conforming tower.
I'm not 100% on this (best guess) but if the calls are G722 and passing H225, H245 messages then the codec support would be required.
It's also worth pointing out that I've heard several arguments against rolling G722 out on sites as people (enterprise users) are not used to the improved performance and the - perceived - amplification of background noise is far improved. Things like shoes on hardwood floors can be heard clearly over the line and can impact call quality.
That said, the option would be nice.
@cjl224
Sorry, clarifying on the above. The 3G towers are newer tech hence the suggested improved codec support.
Simply a case of updating and swapping a PCB if it doesn't support it via software updates surely, and both are done regularly anyway, I don't think it's that intrusive an update in practice even when there was no support yet.
I think this is long overdue. Don't say "who cares" until you've heard what they are talking about. Skype to Skype calls are a great example. It's not just clarity, but range of hearing that is improved.
Humans can hear 20-20,000 Hz. Phones can transmit just 350-3,500 Hz at most, and most are much narrower. Picture that graphically and you'll see that's such a small slice of what we can hear.
You fools who say "who cares" are like the poeple who said "Who needs to see color in television? Black and white is good enough to see and comprehend what your watching."
It's about a better experience, and yes, you CAN communicate better with the full range of hearing vs. just the small slice current phone systems allow.
@(Unverified)
I can't wait for that, but with that ful ranges comes drawbacks like network usage and noise pollution from the environment your talking from!
you might hear a wide range, but your voice sucks at wide range, even the best human singers and such are very limited in what their voices can produce.
But maybe now we can communicate by whistling, and cats and gnats can get phones.
Once they start with stereo sound they'll call it '3D sound' instead of stereo I expect.
Funny how they make such an awe out of something that should been default.
Cool, I can call their customer services in HD and have them fail to resolve anything.
Orange sucks ass.