GSA study confirms Mobile HD Voice services expanding globally

A new report by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) confirms that mobile HD Voice services are expanding across the world. Mobile HD Voice services are now commercially launched on 15 networks in 14 countries in Europe, Asia, MEA, and the Americas.

HD Voice service is commercially launched on mobile networks in Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Russia, Spain, and the UK.

Further trials and network deployments of the HD Voice feature are underway in several more countries including Australia, Portugal, Switzerland and the Dominican Republic.

The mobile HD Voice eco-system is rapidly establishing. HD Voice-capable phones are available today from several leading manufacturers including Alcatel, HTC, LG, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

Alan Hadden, President of the GSA, said: “HD Voice is relatively easy to add into the network and helps operators to clearly differentiate their offering in the marketplace. The range and availability of HD voice-compatible phones is improving, with more products set to be announced in the coming months .”

Mobile HD Voice uses AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate) Wideband technology (W-AMR) standardized by 3GPP, and enables high-quality voice calls in mobile networks and an improved user experience. It provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature, and can be implemented in GSM and WCDMA (UMTS) networks. The higher audio quality of HD Voice improves the call experience and allows people to better share ideas and feelings, do business and communicate information. HD Voice helps operators to clearly differentiate their offerings and can enable high quality services to voice-dependent business like call center services, information services, emergency services etc.