It’s been quite a while since I wrote about HD voice.  When HD voice was first coming to the market 7 or 8 years ago, Dialogic was pretty active in marketing it’s importance and talking about it.  We knew that HD voice would be used when VoLTE was implemented.  And we saw many cases where Value Added Services  needed to be upgraded to insure that HD voice was carried over from just a phone call to the Value Added Service (for instance, voice mail) in question.  It’s taken longer than many of us thought. 

However, it’s here and fairly ubiquitious now.  Apple supports it in the their new phones, WebRTC has this capability built in, and HD voice codecs are used in all OTT offerings such as Google Voice and Skype.  I am finally now taking calls on HD voice. I know this simply because I can hear the difference. 

It’s interesting how the marketing of HD voice is working with the wireless service providers.  In the US at least, service providers are actively marketing it as a benefit of VoLTE.  AT&T makes a big deal about it and so does Verizon.  Sprint, somewhat less, but it’s on their website if you dig a little.

This may be the last blog I write about HD voice, simply because it’s now integrated into many different offerings.  I would expect the marketing of HD voice to start to subside now – it’s not really a differentiator anymore, so why market it when it’s not differentiated? I’m sure there will be a “next thing” to talk about with voice. Apparently, Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) is a big deal. Whatever the “next thing” is, I’ll be writing about it.