CTIA: Acme Packet extending HD voice to the wireless network

High definition voice efforts may be focused on the enterprise today, but Acme Packet (NASDAQ:APKT) believes the wireless industry is in a prime position to take advantage of the new CD-quality voice technology. The vendor today said it plans to show off new capabilities to its Net-Net session border controller (SBC) that allow HD voice to bridge wireless and wireline and enterprise networks.

Wireless in particular would benefit from HD voice quality due to the noisy surroundings many mobile users often find themselves in, said Jonathan Zarkower, director of product marketing for Acme. “HD voice is the product of wideband codecs that cover a wider frequency range, one much closer to the range of human speaking voice,” Zarkower said.

With standard definition voice, it’s very difficult to separate a conversation from louder ambient noise surrounding it, even though the speakers would have no trouble understanding each other if they were conversing side by side. By increasing the clarity of the call, HD voice more closely approximates the quality of a live conversation, making it much easier to distinguish the speaker’s voice from background noise, Zarkower said. Wireless may be the beneficiary of HD voice long before residential wireline networks since the category 3 cabling that feeds most homes can’t support wideband calls.

Specifically, Acme is adding HD codecs to its session border controller (SBC) platform as well as the ability to mediate between different codec types so the different flavors of HD voice being standardized for wireless, enterprise PBX systems, IP phones, telepresence and audio conferencing end points can co-exist and work together. The Net-Net SBC would examine the codecs available on each device and establish a connection over a common codec, or if no common codec was available transcode the conversation. The SBC would also identify the optimal path through the network to support a wideband or narrowband call, Zarkower said.

Despite these enhancements, don’t expect to get crystal clear calls on your cellphone anytime soon. HD voice still has to overcome several hurdles before it become common place on the mobile network. Handsets will need to be upgrade with digital signal processors (DSPs) that can support the HD codecs, and session initiation protocol (SIP) needs to penetrate further into wireless networks, Zarkower said. SIP is being used by wireless operators in limited ways such as in fixed mobile convergence applications such as Verizon Wireless’ (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) now-defunct Hub. Exceptions do exist, like Acme customer Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP), which uses SIP to route all inbound and outbound calls, but for the most part operator are still relying on their legacy circuit-switched architectures to handle all call traffic.

“We’re probably still ahead of the curve here,” Zarkower admitted. But he added that Acme is encouraged by two trends: the rapid turnover of wireless handsets and the arrival of long-term evolution (LTE) networks. With handset replacement cycles running at a little more than a year, it won’t take long for the majority of devices to support HD codecs. The GSMA and some of the world’s largest operators and vendors also recently backed the One Voice initiative for delivering VoIP over LTE networks. Essentially it dictates that voice calls will be SIP end-to-end over the new 4G networks, Zarkower said.

“The timing of LTE rollouts will be closely aligned with a number of new handsets supporting HD codecs,” Zarkower said. “HD will become the expectation.”

Chip vendors including GIPS and BroadVoice are hawking HD codecs for phones and other devices while operators including Orange in the U.K. on the wireless side and Phone.com, Ooma and Grand Junction in the VoIP services market are incorporating HD voice as well.