Change is afoot. When you went to bed last night, the nation had elected a new president who clearly said, "Change has come."

In the VoIP industry, that change comes from AudioCodes, which Monday announced its strategic entry into the high definition VoIP market with its new HD VOIP technology, which it is incorporating into many of its existing media server and gateways.

Today, it has gone even further, announcing its line of HD VOIP-enabled IP phones.

No, AudioCodes is not known for phones -- not like Polycom or snom, both of whom are also pushing high definition VoIP. But, because of its heritage and its proven voice technology, AudioCodes brings its new products to market with confidence.

"Because we already have gateway certification with those vendors, and because our phones can easily emulate our gateways, the testing we've done and the certification we have achieved with our gateways provide us a tremendous head start on certifying the phones," explained Alan Percy, AudioCodes' director of market development.

The AudioCodes 300HD Series includes three models: The 310 HD entry level phone with a basic display and interface; the 320HD premium endpoint with a larger screen, and the 350HD executive phone with a color LCD screen (pictured).

All three models are based on AudioCodes newly announced VoIPerfect software, and include the most commonly used wideband codecs and enhanced security and voice quality features. They are also PoE (Power over Ethernet) capable.

When I spoke with Alan, he explained that the telephony market has been prisoner to the bandwidth limitations imposed by the PSTN, but that the market has reached a tipping point, where the VoIP technology is quickly overtaking legacy lines, opening the door for AudioCodes to leverage its expertise to drive high fidelity voice to the business community.

"We've seen an opportunity, where the market has finally reached an inflection point where enough of the service provider and enterprise infrastructure is pure IP-based," he told me. "We can finally step beyond the limitations of the PSTN when it comes to voice quality."

The news comes during a difficult time for our economy, but AudioCodes has its extisting technology and previous interoperability work to leverage not to mention coming off record year.

For more about HD VOIP, join Alan and myself for a Webinar on November 18th at 2pm ET, called, HD VOIP - The Next Sound Barrier?