Is HD Voice ready for its moment?

HD Voice is gaining momentum, at least in buzz and conversation, leading into ITEXPO West and Q4 of what has been a tumultuous year for the IP communications space. But, despite proclamations made by gung-ho advocates like Jeff Pulver and vendors like AudioCodes, 2009 has not seen many significant domestic deployments of HD Voice products.

Pulver and the leaders of the nascent HDConnect project, Doug Mohney and Daniel Berninger, are absolutely correct about the potential for serious improvements in the rather abysmal call quality currently available in the U.S. In a short video clip about the upcoming HD Communications Summit in New York City, Pulver berates the lack of improvement in telephony call quality, which he claims has remained unchanged since 1937. He sees "billions of dollars in revenue" potential for both service providers and equipment manufacturers.

Given the technological advances in IP telephony, one would think progress would have been made, but Pulver says telephone calls still leave out ranges of frequencies crucial for discerning intonations. He said that the "pathetic reality" is that a "tin can to tin can" phone call probably provides better quality than current telephony options.

As for a personal anecdote, I conduct dozens of interviews via telephone every week, and I would love the ability to understand more nuances in these conversations and not have to have stop people when they're on a roll, just so they can repeat something to me.

Check out this piece, reposted on Pulver's website, for a look at where the market currently stands on HD Voice, both for carriers and equipment manufacturers

I'm really interested in having conversations around HD Voice at ITEXPO West in early September, so let me know what you or your company sees as the potential for HD Voice. It could be a game-changing wave of innovation for IP communications, which is desperately in need of growth engines. But without a significant push to educate enterprises and consumers about the benefits of the technology, HD Voice could end up another has-been technology that never realized its full potential. 

- Pete
@fiercevoip