GSA Confirms HD Voice Services Launched on 45 Mobile Networks

Published on: 2nd Sep 2012

­An updated report from GSA (the Global mobile Suppliers Association) published today confirms a rapid expansion of mobile HD Voice services worldwide.

Mobile HD Voice uses Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband technology (W-AMR, standardized by 3GPP), enabling high-quality voice calls in supporting mobile networks and an improved user experience. It provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature, and is market reality on numerous GSM, WCDMA-UMTS, and LTE networks today.

The latest Mobile HD Voice: Global Update report confirms that HD Voice services are commercially launched in almost 60% of EU member countries.

The new report show how operator investments in mobile HD Voice extend far beyond Europe. HD Voice services are commercially launched on 45 GSM, 3G/HSPA and LTE mobile networks in 35 countries and territories.

Mobile HD Voice services are offered by competing operators in 10 markets - Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Poland, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey and UK,

More than 80 HD Voice enabled mobile phones are launched by many leading manufacturers, including products for professional broadcasters. Many new phone models are delivered with HD Voice (W-AMR) activated as default. Demand for HD Voice is increasing and many operators are working to maximize HD voice handset availability.

Alan Hadden, President of GSA, said: "The number of operators offering commercial HD Voice service has increased by 40% in under a year. Initially HD voice service was offered on HSPA networks, followed by GSM. HD voice is now market reality on LTE systems with the first wave of commercial VoLTE service launches announced in South Korea."

There is a strong business case for Mobile HD Voice. Customers make more, or longer, calls with HD Voice, and highly value the service. HD Voice helps operators to clearly differentiate their offerings and enable high quality services to voice dependent business like call center services, information services, emergency services, etc. HD Voice is also ideal for conference calls and can contribute to a reduction in business travel and raise productivity while reducing the environmental impact. Calls which are easier to hear and understand reduce the fatigue typically associated with long conference calls.

The maximum benefits from using HD Voice on a mobile HD-capable network are realized or perceived when both calling and called parties use HD Voice-capable phones. Improvements in call quality are also often observed even when calling a non-HD Voice phone, due to improvements in the acoustic performance and advanced noise reduction capabilities which are present in most HD Voice phones.

 

Tags: [hd voice]