Voice quality takes a front seat: Vendors move toward reducing background noise

Now that carriers are touting voice quality as a way to differentiate their services, they have to deliver high-quality service. Consumers demand it.

"Frankly, from a customer point of view, if it doesn't sound as good as a wire, it's unacceptable," said Mike Bennett, switch supervisor for Western Wireless' Oklahoma City market.

A J.D. Powers study released at the end of 1997 showed that call quality was the most important driver of customer satisfaction, compared with previous years when price was the biggest factor, said Jerry Greenen, group product manager for Tellabs.

The emergence of ClearLine Communications, a new company dedicated to improving voice quality on wireless networks, is evidence of a growing emphasis on voice quality. High-quality wireless service encourages customers to talk longer, said Michele Ozzimo, vice president of technology for ClearLine.

ClearLine has just introduced its first product, the QntX-2000 audio processor. It is based on patented QuintroniX technology, which separates voice from background noise and increases the clarity and fidelity of voice. The QntX-2000 monitors audio levels on a call-by-call basis, automatically adjusting volume to an optimal level. Users can also add echo cancellation.

QntX-2000 is unique, Ozzimo said, because it can be programmed via a laptop or an Ethernet port, so users can set their own parameters for voice quality. It also packages several capabilities on one platform.

"If [carriers] are going to deploy echo cancellers and can get the rest of this on the same platform, it becomes very viable for them to pursue us," said Tyler Magruder, vice president of sales and marketing for ClearLine.

A number of market segments should be interested in deploying the product, Magruder said. The offering should particularly appeal to U.S. GSM players, some of which have had problems with volume.

Western Wireless, a GSM carrier, has conducted a trial of the QntX-2000 in Oklahoma City and intends to deploy the product commercially, Bennett said. The QntX-2000 offers better background noise reduction than other products, he said, and is attractive because of its integration capabilities.

Magruder also points to rural players that have introduced time division multiple access (TDMA) to parts of their networks as fitting potential customers. They may want to use the QntX-2000 on the analog portions of their networks to offer quality similar to the newer TDMA portions. "We can give 'digital' quality sound much cheaper than if they deployed TDMA onto the network," Magruder said.

Tellabs, well-known for its echo cancellation products that include ancillary call processing such as automatic level control and background noise reduction, said the trend toward higher voice quality is growing. "Over the last few months there's been a lot more interest in ancillary call processing," Greenen said.

In the future, he envisions products that will respond to carrier demands for predicting when they will have call quality problems. Carriers want to be able to correct degradations in call quality before they receive customer complaints, he said.

Tellabs plans to introduce new audio-quality technology that improves call clarity at the PCS '98 show later this month. The noise reduction portion of the technology is designed to relieve problems of mobile background noise.

ClearLine intends to further its background noise reduction capabilities with continuing research that focuses on hands-free environments, especially in areas such as automobiles where background noise is high.

The company is currently working with an infrastructure vendor on using ClearLine's technology on the handset end.

TELIGENT EXTENDS ACCESS Teligent signed an agreement with RealTel Inc., giving Teligent the option to serve customers in the 200 RealTel properties across the U.S.

WINSTAR EXPANDS D.C. DEMO WinStar added a hub site in Washington, D.C., increasing the number of buildings it serves from four to 11. WinStar hopes for nationwide buildout by the end of 1999.