Orange Unveils High Definition Voice 2010 & Puts Great Emphasis on Network Call Quality – On New year’s eve, it has been a big surprise came from Orange that with the release of its high definition voice (HD Voice) 2010, it will put great emphasis on network call quality during new year. Considered as supreme sound quality and crystal clear, it has been claimed by the company that it will set new standards for the industry in the coming time.
The high definition voice uses WB-AMR (Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate) speech codec. It renders high potential for good audio quality, all thanks given to wider bandwidth of 50-7000Hz as compared to present narrowband speech codec of 300-3400 Hz. In addition, it doesn’t require any additional network resources.
Basically Orange UK is putting its efforts on upgrading the quality of voice calls, along with branding high definition voice in the ongoing explore for market distinction. In recent years, data rates have zoomed a lot and the quality of a voice call has not improvised since the first GSM call back in year 1991. About 10 years ago, when adaptive multi rate was launched in the market, there were some chances to improve the quality of voice calls, though operators took this opportunity to carry more calls rather to raise the quality.
The CEO of Orange Tom Alexander stated, “Orange is proud to be leading the industry into the next decade by announcing a new standard in voice innovation that will transform the mobile experience for customers in the UK. HD Voice really does inject a level of innovation into mobile phone calls, making it sound as if callers are actually in the same room. Once people have tried it, they won’t want to go back.”
For most of the European languages, current scenario call quality is good enough. It is a desperate effort taken by Orange to distinguish signature handsets, although failed to get users using custom widgets or MegaSIMs and HD voice is an attractive tag to put on branded phones. Well, enforcing and carrying out WB-AMR on the network will cost money and every base station needs to support it, perhaps it will be a software upgrade, not highly expensive. In a nutshell, it’s all about the quality of voice calls on mobile phones, which Orange is expecting and looking for.