VoIP Goes HD with AudioCodes

AudioCodes Ltd. announced Monday the launch of VoIPerfectHD, its high-definition voice over IP technology, which doubles the audible voice spectrum to deliver higher voice clarity, better intelligibility and richer sound.

Next year AudioCodes plans to embed HD VoIP across its product portfolio, which includes multiservice business gateways (MSBG), media servers, media gateways and DSP chips and IP phones.

AudioCodes’ HD VoIP technology is based on the use of wideband speech codecs that encode 7.1kHz of the voice spectrum to double the bandwidth and improve everyday voice communication quality to a level similar to an FM radio. Legacy narrowband codecs encode 3.4kHz, limiting the bandwidth for VoIP calls.

AudioCodes has been working over the past few years to implement a group of standards-based wideband speech codecs including G.722, AMR-WB, Microsoft RTAudio and others for use in wireline, wireless, cable, enterprise and Internet applications.

“HD VoIP holds the potential to drive growth in a number of key market areas in which AudioCodes is very active,” said Joe McGarvey, principal analyst ─ IP services infrastructure for Current Analysis. “AudioCodes’ portfolio of products is HD VoIP-enabled and geared toward improving voice quality and naturalness, enhancing foreign accents to sound clearer and offering transcoding between various HD VoIP devices.”

AudioCodes’ current and planned HD VoIP Enabled products consist of the IPmedia 3000 Media Server, Mediant 3000 Media Gateway, Mediant 1000 MSBG and the Mediant family of Microsoft certified basic Hybrid Gateways. AudioCodes’ Media Servers and Gateways now enable transcoding between different wideband coders while retaining wideband quality. This will allow interworking and connectivity between different wideband networks such as mobile and broadband.

AudioCodes plans to introduce HD VoIP on more products in 2009.

“With our launch of VoIPerfectHD, AudioCodes is creating a whole new market opportunity for the company’s voice communication business and introducing a key competitive differentiator in our markets,” said Shabtai Adlersberg, AudioCodes’ chairman, CEO and president. “It’s about bringing a new real sense of quality to VoIP communication, enabling improvements to business productivity and clear interpersonal communication between people and across wireline, wireless and cable IP networks.”