HD is a great acronym that describes an improvement in clarity, in intelligibility, in performance even. The television industry is doing a great job educating people that those two letters are really worth upgrading your old products to get the latest ones.
Now its the turn of telephony to get the same treatment – HD Voice is coming, for some of us its already here, but what does it mean both in terms of the technology and the benefits to us?
Lets start with some basics on the technology. What you hear when speaking with someone face to face is very different to what you hear over the phone. Speaking face to face gives you the full richness of someones voice, you hear every frequency as perfectly as they intended you to. Its easy to understand, especially when you add in complimentary body language.
Now lets place a telephone system between the two of you. The majority of nuances, the subtle intonations of the human voice, the tonal variations are lost, never to be found again. Is it any wonder anyone using the telephone intensively learns the phonetic alphabet very quickly (“no, it’s s for sugar – sailing, not f for foxtrot – failing that I’m planning this weekend”).
The full range of frequencies that a human voice covers stretches from 1 to 22,000Hz. By using standard telephony you cut this range down to 300 to 3400Hz.
A huge drop in the amount of information available. Yes you can generally make out what someone is saying, but the slightest bit of background noise, distraction or interference means you start to lose vital information because of the poor intelligibility.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has been around for some time now, the main focus for this technology has been cost savings for enterprises. Companies are now turning to VoIP for an additional benefit – it enables telephone conversations in HD Voice. This is due to a technological advance that doubles the amount of frequencies available for a conversation compared to standard telephony – 150 to 6800Hz are now available.

The diagram below shows this expanded frequency range.

Narrowband - 300 Hz to 3.4 kH

Wideband - 150 Hz to 7 kHz

What this gives you is an improvement in intelligibility – you hear speech closer to how the person talking intended it to sound, you hear more ‘depth’ to their words.
With standard telephony, you are reliant on technology that was first standardised in the early 20th century. The aim then, was not how clear could they make the conversation, but simply how many conversations they could push down a single wire. Because of this, the human voice is squeezed, sometimes beyond recognition.
In every other aspect of our life, the technology we used has significantly moved on at an ever increasing pace. Imagine if televisions, cars, medicine all still used early 20th century standards? Telephone technology has given us more quantity, its about time it started giving us more quality. Why do we put up with it? We’re probably so grateful it works sometimes, that we just accept the poor quality as a price to pay.

What can you do to get HD Voice? Its not simple – but get yourself an end to end IP system that supports wideband audio. Critically, don’t forget the most important part – Headsets. These are often seen as a simple commodity, but are a vital link in ensuring the conversation is in HD voice end to end.

For more information regarding wideband headsets, test or integration please contact us.