Wideband audio

Wideband audio, also known as HD voice, is high definition voice quality for telephony audio, contrasted with standard digital telephony "toll quality". It extends the frequency range of audio signals transmitted over telephone lines, resulting in higher quality speech. The range of the human voice extends from 80 Hz to 14 kHz but traditional, voiceband or narrowband telephone calls limit audio frequencies to the range of 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz. Wideband audio relaxes the bandwidth limitation and transmits in the audio frequency range of 50 Hz to 7 kHz or higher.

History

In 1987, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standardized a version of wideband audio known as G.722. Radio broadcasters began using G.722 over Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) to provide high-quality audio for remote broadcasts, such as commentary from sports venues. AMR-WB (G.722.2) was developed by Nokia and VoiceAge and it was first specified by 3GPP.

The traditional telephone network (PSTN) is generally limited to narrowband audio by the intrinsic nature of its transmission technology, TDM (time-division multiplexing), and by the analogue-to-digital converters used at the edge of the network, as well as the speakers, microphones and other elements in the endpoints themselves.

Wideband audio has been broadly deployed in conjunction with videoconferencing. Providers of this technology quickly discovered that despite the explicit emphasis on video transmission, the quality of the participant experience was significantly influenced by the fidelity of the associated audio signal.

Communications via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) can readily employ wideband audio. When PC-to-PC calls are placed via VoIP services, such as Skype, and the participants use a high-quality headset, the resulting call quality can be noticeably superior to conventional PSTN calls. Some of the handsets manufactured by Nokia which run S60 and Series40 OS that support VoIP also support wideband audio.^[1] A number of audio codecs have emerged to support these services, supplementing G.722.

Manufacturers of audio conferencing equipment have introduced wideband-capable models that include support for G.722 over VoIP.

Conference calls are a direct beneficiary of the enhancements offered by wideband audio. Participants often struggle to figure out who is talking, or to understand accented speakers. Misunderstandings are commonplace due primarily to generally poor audio quality and an accumulation of background noise.

Some listener benefits cited of wideband audio compared to traditional (narrowband):

• clearer overall sound quality
• easier to recognize voices, distinguish confusing sounds and understand accented speakers
• ease of deciphering words that have the close sounds of ‘s’ and ‘f’ and others, often indistinguishable over telephone lines
• ability to hear faint talkers and to understand double-talk (when more than one person is speaking at the same time)
• reduced listening effort (decreased cognitive load), resulting in increased productivity and lessened listener fatigue
• better understanding in the face of other impairments, such as when talkers are using a speakerphone or in the presence of background noise

Despite its reputation for poor audio quality, the mobile telephone industry has started to make some progress on wideband audio. 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, HTC, Nokia , Samsung and Sony, and network demonstrations have been conducted.

Deployment

As business telephone systems have adopted VoIP technology, support for wideband audio has grown rapidly. Telephone sets from Avaya, Cisco, NEC Unified Solutions, Grandstream, Gigaset, Polycom (which brands wideband audio "HD Voice"), Snom, AudioCodes (which brands wideband audio "HDVoIP") and others now incorporate G.722, as well as varying degrees of higher-quality audio components.

Suppliers of integrated circuits for telephony equipment, including DSP Group, Broadcom, Infineon, and Texas Instruments, include wideband audio in their feature portfolios. There are audio conferencing service providers that support wideband connections from these and other VoIP endpoints, while also permitting PSTN participants to join the conference in narrowband. sipXtapi is an open source solution for VoIP media processing engine supporting wideband and HD voice that provides RTP and codecs through a plugin framework for use with SIP and other VoIP protocols. Skype uses an audio codec called Silk which allows for extremely high quality audio.

A number of carriers around the world have rolled out HD voice services based on the G.722 wideband standard. In North America, hosted service providers have recently deployed the Aastra Hi-Q upgrade to its installed user base and as of January 2010 claimed around 70,000 HD voice endpoints. Consumer service provider ooma has an estimated 25,000 HD voice endpoints deployed stemming from its roll out of its second-generation Telo hardware.

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. Orange has since rolled out HD voice in the UK, France, Belgium, Romania, Armenia, Dominican Republic and Spain, with Switzerland and Luxembourg due to follow.^[2] Moreover Orange has announced that will ensure HD Voice interoperability between Orange countries for both mobile and fixed networks, interoperability with other operators and looking to launch HD Voice over their 2G networks as well, by in 2013/2014.^[3]

Operator	Country	Launch date	Note
Orange	Moldova	02009-09-01-0000September 2009	[2]
Orange	Armenia	02010-02-01-0000February 2010	[2]
Orange	France	02010-07-01-0000July 2010	[2]
Orange	United Kingdom	02010-09-01-0000September 2010	[2]
SFR	France	02010-09-01-0000September 2010	[4]
Orange	Spain	02010-09-01-0000September 2010	[2]
Mobistar	Belgium	02010-09-01-0000September 2010	[2]
Vipnet	Croatia	02010-09-01-0000September 2010	[2]
Tata DoCoMo	India	02010-11-01-0000November 2010	[2]
Mobinil	Egypt	02010-11-01-0000November 2010	[2]
MegaFon	Russia	02010-11-01-0000November 2010	[2] Also on GSM from 27.04.11
Orange	Luxembourg	02010-12-01-0000December 2010	[2]
csl.	Hong Kong	02010-12-01-0000December 2010	[2]
Turkcell	Turkey	02011-01-01-0000January 2011	[2]
TIM	Italy	02011-01-01-0000January 2011	[2]
Vodafone	Turkey	02011-04-01-0000April 2011	[2]
Orange	Mauritius	02011-04-01-0000April 2011	[2]
Orange	Romania	02011-05-01-0000May 2011	[2]
3	United Kingdom	02011-05-01-0000May 2011	[5]
Orange	Dominican Republic	02011-06-01-0000June 2011	[2]
du	United Arab Emirates	02011-06-01-0000June 2011	[2]
M-Tel	Bulgaria	02011-06-01-0000June 2011	[2]
Telstra	Australia	02011-06-01-0000June 2011	[6] World’s largest coverage footprint of HD Voice
A1	Austria	02011-07-01-0000July 2011	[7]
Orange	Uganda	02011-07-01-0000July 2011	[2]
Wind	Canada	02011-07-01-0000July 2011	[2]
T-Mobile	Poland	02011-08-01-0000August 2011	[8] Also on GSM.
Orange	Kenya	02011-08-01-0000August 2011	[2]
T-Mobile	Austria	02011-08-01-0000August 2011	[9]
Mobitel	Slovenia	02011-09-01-0000September 2011	[2]
Vip	Serbia	02011-09-01-0000September 2011	[2] Also on GSM.
Hrvatski Telekom	Croatia	02011-09-01-0000September 2011	[2]
TDC	Denmark	02011-09-01-0000September 2011	[10]
Orange	Switzerland	02011-10-01-0000October 2011	[11]
T-Mobile	Czech Republic	02011-10-01-0000October 2011	[12]
Telekom	Germany	02011-11-01-0000November 2011	[13]
3	Austria	02011-11-01-0000November 2011	[14]
Si.mobil	Slovenia	02011-12-01-0000December 2011	[2]
Bell	Canada	02012-01-01-0000January 2012	[15]
Swisscom	Switzerland	02012-02-01-0000February 2012	[16]
KPN	Netherlands	02012-03-01-0000March 2012	[17]
Celcom	Malaysia	02012-04-01-0000April 2012	[2]
Vodafone	Ireland	02012-04-01-0000April 2012	[18]
Play	Poland	02012-07-01-0000July 2012	[19]
T-Mobile	United Kingdom	02012-08-01-0000August 2012	[20]
Orange	Jordan	02012-08-01-0000August 2012	[2]
MTS	Russia	02012-09-01-0000September 2012	[21]
Telus	Canada	02012-09-01-0000September 2012	[2]
Meo	Portugal	02012-09-01-0000September 2012	[22]
Rogers	Canada	02012-10-01-0000October 2012	[2]
Smart	Philippines	02012-10-01-0000October 2012	[2]
Bouygues	France	02012-11-01-0000November 2012	[2]
DTAC	Thailand	02012-11-01-0000November 2012	[2] On 3G 850/2100 Network.
Ooredoo	Qatar	02012-11-01-0000November 2012	[2]
3	Denmark	02012-12-01-0000December 2012	[23]
Airtel	Nigeria	02012-12-01-0000December 2012	[2]
Orange	Israel	02012-12-01-0000December 2012	[2]
T-Mobile	United States	02013-01-01-0000January 2013	[24]
AXIS	Indonesia	02013-01-01-0000January 2013	[2]
DNA	Finland	02013-01-01-0000January 2013	[2]
Chunghwa Telecom	Taiwan	02013-02-01-0000February 2013	[25]
Orange	Ivory Coast	02013-02-01-0000February 2013	[2]
Airtel	Kenya	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[26]
Airtel	Malawi	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[26]
Airtel	Rwanda	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[26]
StarHub	Singapore	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[2]
Telenor	Norway	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[27]
Mobily	Saudi Arabia	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[28]
STC	Saudi Arabia	02013-03-01-0000March 2013	[2]
NetCom	Norway	02013-04-01-0000April 2013	[2]
Telekom	Romania	02013-04-01-0000April 2013	[29][30]
Orange	Slovakia	02013-05-01-0000May 2013	[31]
AIS	Thailand	02013-05-01-0000May 2013	[2] On 3G 2100 Network.
Cosmote	Greece	02013-06-01-0000June 2013	[32]
Crnogorski Telekom	Montenegro	02013-06-01-0000June 2013	[2] Also on GSM.
Vodafone	Australia	02013-06-01-0000June 2013	[33]
Magyar Telekom	Hungary	02013-07-01-0000July 2013	[34]
Vodafone	Germany	02013-07-01-0000July 2013	[2]
BITĖ	Lithuania	02013-07-01-0000July 2013	[2]
BITĖ	Latvia	02013-08-01-0000August 2013	[2]
Kyivstar	Ukraine	02013-08-01-0000August 2013	[2] On GSM.
Telenor	Hungary	02013-08-01-0000August 2013	[35]
Telenor	Serbia	02013-09-01-0000September 2013	[36] Also on GSM.
Vodafone	New Zealand	02013-11-01-0000November 2013	[37]
MTS	Belarus	02013-12-01-0000December 2013	[2]
VIVA	Kuwait	02013-12-01-0000December 2013	[38]
Orange	Mali	02014-01-01-0000January 2014	[2]
2degrees	New Zealand	02014-01-01-0000January 2014	[39]
Sonatel	Senegal	02014-02-01-0000February 2014	[2]
Telia	Sweden	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[40]
E-Plus	Germany	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[41]
Inwi	Morocco	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[42] Also on GSM.
Nawras	Oman	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[43]
Tele2	Sweden	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[2]
VIVA	Bahrain	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[44]
Zain	Bahrain	02014-03-01-0000March 2014	[45]
EMT	Estonia	02014-04-01-0000April 2014	[46]
Altel	Kazakhstan	02014-05-01-0000May 2014	[47] Also on GSM.
Etisalat	Sri Lanka	02014-05-01-0000May 2014	[48]
Robi	Bangladesh	02014-06-01-0000June 2014	[49]
Sprint US	United States	02014-06-01-0000June 2014	[50]
Vodafone	Netherlands	02014-07-01-0000July 2014	[51]
Sunrise	Switzerland	02014-07-01-0000July 2014	[52]
Orange	Poland	02014-07-01-0000July 2014	[53] Also on GSM.
Ooredoo	Myanmar	02014-08-01-0000August 2014	[54]
Vodafone	Hungary	02014-08-01-0000August 2014	[55]
MTN	South Africa	02014-08-01-0000August 2014	[56]
AMC Mobil	Albania	02014-08-01-0000August 2014	[57]
Telenor	Denmark	02014-09-01-0000September 2014	[58]
Vodafone	United Kingdom	02014-09-01-0000September 2014	[59]
Vodafone	Albania	02014-10-01-0000October 2014	[60]
Vodafone	Spain	02014-10-01-0000October 2014	[61]
Tele2	Lithuania	02014-10-01-0000October 2014	[62]
Beeline	Russia	02014-10-01-0000October 2014	[63]
Tele2	Latvia	02014-11-01-0000November 2014	[64]
Telenor	Sweden	02014-12-01-0000December 2014	[65]
Dialog	Sri Lanka	02012-02-01-0000February 2012	[66]
Vodafone	Italy	02015-02-01-0000February 2015	[2]
Plus	Poland	02014-12-01-0000December 2014	[67]

• As of September 2014, GSA a report announces 116 commercial mobile HD Voice networks launched in 75 countries.^[2]

Wideband Codec

Following are wideband codecs used in telecommunication ^[68]

ITU-T

• G.711.1
• G.718
• G.722
• G.722.1 (Siren7)
• G.722.2 (Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband)
• G.729.1

Other

• Extended Adaptive Multi-Rate – Wideband
• Speex
• Skype SILK
• Microsoft RTAudio
• Variable-Rate Multimode Wideband (VMR-WB)
• internet Speech Audio Codec (iSAC)
• Opus

See also

• Wideband voice
• List of Smartphones using HD Voice

References

External links

• www.hdvoicenews.com – HD Voice News
• The Effect of Bandwidth on Speech Intelligibility – Polycom technical White Paper
• TMCNet.com HD Voice Community
• VoIP transitioning to High Definition Voice – InfoWorld blog on wideband audio
• Texas Instruments HD Audio website
• Can You Hear What I Mean? Polycom Delivers HD Voice – sponsored IDC White Paper
• International Telecommunications Union
• HD Voice Cookbook