The difference between HD voice and legacy telephony is abundantly clear. Will it become mainstream, asks Jon Doyle. Co-sponsored feature: CommuniGate Systems
 
 
 
Amazingly, HD voice has been around for nearly two decades, but only recently has it become a viable technology for communications. Why? Well, several factors have contributed to HD voice that really have little to do with the technology itself and more to do with our lifestyles and usage models.

This nascent technology is very much here to stay, and mobile operators have an advantage. HD voice is an evolution that has been waiting for quite a long time to arrive; those operators bringing this technology to market today will change the way we communicate for generations to come.

In order for HD voice to really become prevalent, the technology has to be both widespread and easily accessible, with a high degree of compatibility and interoperability between different vendors.

Additionally, another major barrier to adoption has been ubiquitous availability of HD voice capable networks. For both technical and commercial reasons, the old fixed network PSTN systems, or Plain Old Telephony System (POTS), will never be able to support HD quality technology.

In recent years, however, there has been a shift away from POTS, as more and more people use their mobile phones, or computers for telephony, with the mobile phone rapidly becoming the primary and sole communication device for a vast majority.

More often than not, today’s younger generation do not use or even have access to a PSTN service. Instead they rely solely on their mobile phone, whether they are out and about, at home or at work.

This is especially true for small businesses, like doctors or legal professionals who view their smartphone as the core of their business communications.

Also, more people are comfortable today using a softphone on a computer, thanks to free services like Skype.

This is good news for the HD voice technology itself, because both the fixed, closed IP and the public internet networks are HD capable, in addition to the mobile networks. Mobile HD voice is both technically and commercially possible today, and will act as a service differentiator for mobile operators looking to entice business users away from consumer tariffs. The widespread viability of consumer-focused, mobile HD voice stands to improve with the rollout of 4G/LTE networks.

The benefits of HD voice can only be realised when the end-points of the conversation are HD-compatible devices, and this is one of the principle reasons HD voice has been waiting to happen for almost 20 years.

With device availability being so critical, HD voice can only become ubiquitous when we reach critical mass, but thankfully, the 20-year delay is now contributing to mass market availability of HD voice enabled end-points.

With many of the key patents expired, or about to expire, HD voice is finding its way into mass market devices of all types; including desktop IP phones from companies such as Polycom, home phones provided by cable or fibre broadband providers and computer based softphones like CommuiGate’s Flash-based Pronto! client. The latest estimate from Global IP Solutions puts the worldwide number of HD voice capable end-points as close to one billion.

Today, if you subscribe to a communication package from your broadband provider, such as Free, SFR or Orange in France, or Comcast in the US, you are provided with a box that connects your phone to the internet instead of the legacy POTS network.

Being IP based, these devices have access to high-speed connectivity, and therefore the ability to deliver a high fidelity audio experience with HD voice.

With the patent expiration, and both network operators and handset vendors distributing HD voice technology by default, one of the key barriers to adoption, widespread availability, is being quite rapidly removed.

A friend of mine, Jessica, owns her own legal practice and has just had her internet connection upgraded to high-speed cable. Recently I took the opportunity to give her a demonstration of HD voice to illustrate how it could benefit her business.

One of the things that really resonated for Jessica was clarity of conference calls. I gave her a free account to try out, and she was amazed at the difference; “hearing is believing” was her immediate reaction.

In her working environment, meetings are very dynamic and the technologies need to both work with simplicity and stand up to the demands of mobile workers. For her team, reliability and quality matters above all.

Beyond HD voice, IP based communication services stand to add significant added value to businesses like Jessica’s. For Jessica, a universal phone number would make a world of difference. Meaning, she can have one number that rings her mobile, her office phone, and even a home line. She can even configure how the calls are routed, based on time of day, or if she is already on the line. Through an easy self-care portal, Jessica can control these settings on any computer, anywhere in the world.

Like Jessica, many small business owners typically are not glued to a desk or cubicle, and often their business success relies upon them being reachable at any time of the day no matter where they are.

It is important that company brand and a professional image are reinforced when customers ring up the main line. With the waterfall, simultaneous or cascading ring schemes available with IP communications, it is easier than ever before to ensure a call is answered. The best option for Jessica is to route missed calls to a contact centre service, helping reduce the number of voicemail diverts, the number of slam-downs and uphold the level of service her customers expect.

This is important not just for Jessica, but for the network operator too. For Jessica, diverting to voicemail or missing a call is bad for her business and can damage her professional reputation. For the network operators, fewer people typically now leave voicemails, opting to call back later or send a text message. This failure to terminate the call results in both costs to the operator and lost revenues.

HD voice has had a hard time getting adopted, mainly because of the old PSTN phone system being incompatible, and the perception that we are locked into the tether of our desk or kitchen wall.

Today the computer has become an accepted and readily used tool for telephony and, as AT&T recently discovered, many people choose not to sign up for landline phones when they move into a new house. In 2009, AT&T was estimated to have lost approximately 1.5 million landlines a quarter, with customers opting for more feature rich wireless and broadband services.

This situation lends itself very well to adoption of HD voice, seeding the market with HD voice capable devices, on HD voice capable mobile or broadband networks and moving the market towards critical mass.

Business users like my friend Jessica are already excited about the potential of HD voice for sophisticated IVR, call centre applications, and audio/video conferencing. Mobile operators are poised to take advantage of improved quality of HD voice, transforming the role and perception of VoIP from toll-evading and cheap to a high quality, reliable experience powered by HD voice.

CommuniGate Systems is very proud to support all major HD voice technologies across the entire product portfolio. Our unified communications client Pronto! is perfect for small business subscribers needing powerful business communications tools, delivered in the Web 2.0 model. GTB

 
Jon Doyle is vice president of CommuniGate Systems

 
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HD Voice data

$103bn: VoIP market opportunity

$10.4bn: SMB VoIP market

1bn: Today’s estimated HD Voice end-points

HD Voice whitepaper available at www.communigate.com/hdvoice

End user benefits of HD Voice

· Comfortable, natural sounding voice interaction.

· Preserves sound quality for non-native speakers.

· Clear, successful interaction with automated call centers and voice portals.

· Successful interaction with automated machine and instrument interfaces.

· Increased customer satisfaction for new generation customers used to high-fidelity sound quality.

· Improved voice recognition accuracy for IVRs and automated speech recognition (ASRs)