List of HD compatible telephones

[josephmyates]

It was a corded Plantronics headset. I'm not sure of the model#.

Just one more clarification. Would any high quality corded headset have produce the same results? - or was it something particular to the Plantonics headset that made it sound much better?

[Bobby B]

I think we chose the Plantronics one because they had a history of making headsets that worked well with corporate VoIP phones. Without testing, I can't really say if you'll get similar results from other manufacturers or models.

Just one more clarification. Would any high quality corded headset have produce the same results? - or was it something particular to the Plantonics headset that made it sound much better?

[josephmyates]

I think we chose the Plantronics one because they had a history of making headsets that worked well with corporate VoIP phones. Without testing, I can't really say if you'll get similar results from other manufacturers or models.

Understood. I also know that Plantronics is well known for their quality headsets. What kind of testing do you do on these to determine if they are delivering superior results?

As a consumer - I don't have the time or equipment or funds - to test all the available headsets. What should I be looking for then?
I see Plantronics has a line of "wideband" corded headsets - SupraPlus Wideband:

"Working with the latest in wideband VoIP technology, the Plantronics® SupraPlus® HW251 headset delivers superior audio performance improving calls..."

"Wideband utilises more than twice the audio bandwidth of conventional telephony to greatly enhance intelligibility. The new wideband headsets provide users with the feeling of true “face-to-face” conversations, resulting in improved business communication during PC-based audio and video conference calls, and person-to-person calls."

Is this the type of headset that you used for the CES demo?

[josephmyates]

GSM (Global Mobile Suppliers) has release a report of 33 mobile phones that support HD Voice

"Nokia N8, C6, C7 and E7 are shipping with HD Voice activated as default. Nokia C3 and X3 are shipping with HD Voice activated. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Xperia Neo, Xperia Play and Xperia Pro all ship with HD Voice activated. Newly-released Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Xperia Mini Pro and Xperia Acro phones ship with HD Voice activated, which is expected to be the default for all new SE Android phones."

"HD Voice services are now launched on 20 mobile networks in 18 countries: Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, La Réunion, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the UK."

Unfortunately - no USA Networks (yet)

Although I did read:
"Verizon Wireless demonstrated a range of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and HD Voice capable user devices at Mobile World Congress 2011.
“The initial devices we’ll support [AMR-WB] are smart phones for sure,” said Verizon Wireless Marjorie Hsu, VP Technology Development. “Other devices on the road map, we’re working through the form factor, we want to get the user experience right.”

Am I correct in assuming that a call placed from one of these "HD Voice" mobile phones over a mobile network that has HD Voice service to a Ooma Telo (with a HD-capable phone or Telo Handset) would be HD Voice end to end?

[scottlindner]

GSM (Global Mobile Suppliers) has release a report of 33 mobile phones that support HD Voice

"Nokia N8, C6, C7 and E7 are shipping with HD Voice activated as default. Nokia C3 and X3 are shipping with HD Voice activated. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Xperia Neo, Xperia Play and Xperia Pro all ship with HD Voice activated. Newly-released Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini, Xperia Mini Pro and Xperia Acro phones ship with HD Voice activated, which is expected to be the default for all new SE Android phones."

"HD Voice services are now launched on 20 mobile networks in 18 countries: Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, La Réunion, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the UK."

Unfortunately - no USA Networks (yet)

Although I did read:
"Verizon Wireless demonstrated a range of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and HD Voice capable user devices at Mobile World Congress 2011.
“The initial devices we’ll support [AMR-WB] are smart phones for sure,” said Verizon Wireless Marjorie Hsu, VP Technology Development. “Other devices on the road map, we’re working through the form factor, we want to get the user experience right.”

Am I correct in assuming that a call placed from one of these "HD Voice" mobile phones over a mobile network that has HD Voice service to a Ooma Telo (with a HD-capable phone or Telo Handset) would be HD Voice end to end?

That depends if they are using the same "HD" codec. HD is a really awful term to use because we are assuming it is using the same methodology as HD TV where HD is for a fact better than SD because it has more pixels. With "HD" voice calls, it is a different CODEC. There can be many "HD" CODECs but if both parties do not support the same "HD" CODECs the call will revert to "SD". The CODECs are better, but it is hard to say without digging into what CODEC those services are using.

I have found only once where the little HD icon fired up when calling someone on a non Ooma Telo line. It was my wife's employer that uses a VoIP phone system.

Scott

[josephmyates]

Although I did read:
"Verizon Wireless demonstrated a range of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and HD Voice capable user devices at Mobile World Congress 2011.
“The initial devices we’ll support [AMR-WB] are smart phones for sure,” said Verizon Wireless Marjorie Hsu, VP Technology Development. “Other devices on the road map, we’re working through the form factor, we want to get the user experience right.”

There can be many "HD" CODECs but if both parties do not support the same "HD" CODECs the call will revert to "SD". The CODECs are better, but it is hard to say without digging into what CODEC those services are using.
Scott

You're right Scott - I'm finding their are many HD Voice codecs out there. At least 8-9.
I did a little more "digging" and found out these mobile services are using the AMR-WB codec.
Actually it's shown in the Verizon quote above - "devices we'll support [AMR-WB]"

--About AMR-WB--
AMR-WB, an evolution of the AMR codec in the GSM cellular world, is the current wideband leader for HD voice in the mobile world. It has the backing of France Telecom, Nokia, and Ericsson and the codec is in active use in France Telecom's rollout of HD voice across Europe. Handset manufacturers, including Nokia and Sony Ericsson, have lined up to support it.
The cellular world likes AMR-WB because it can deliver a wideband experience in 24 kb/s -- a fraction of the 64 kb/s for G.722. It's also no secret that the vendors most actively promoting AMR-WB -- France Telecom and Ericsson -- also hold patents for the codec, so there's a definite financial interest by those companies in the proliferation of the codec.
Needless to say, use of AMR-WB requires a royalty payment. Device developers have said implementing AMR takes much more work than G.722 because of the many different modes it can operate in. And while it may be bandwidth frugal compared to G.722, it comes at the price of using more compute cycles for data compression which leads to shorter battery life.

So am I correct - that Ooma's HD Voice is using the ITU G.722 codec? Is it possible for a device to support more than one codec?

[scottlindner]

Ooma and any other VOIP system is fully capable of supporting as many CODECs as it has RAM to support it. What they choose to support is most likely based on their market. I doubt Ooma will support these mobile CODECs for a very long time. If you are referring to handsets and phones, these are analog to Ooma and the question is simply the band they support.

[josephmyates]

Ooma and any other VOIP system is fully capable of supporting as many CODECs as it has RAM to support it. What they choose to support is most likely based on their market. I doubt Ooma will support these mobile CODECs for a very long time. If you are referring to handsets and phones, these are analog to Ooma and the question is simply the band they support.

Would that be because of the Royalty payments to use this CODEC?
Seems as though - IF in the future - a majority of mobile phones users were to be on networks with AMR_WB (Adaptive Multirate Wideband - G.722.2) - then Ooma would want to support that also? That could (would) be a huge market to consider.

Could you elaborate - do you mean any handsets and phones attached to the Ooma - are seen as analog?
What about VOIP phones on the remote end that are HD Voice (g.722) capable?
By the "band they support" - do you mean the the high-end frequency range (7 kHz to 20 kHz)?

[scottlindner]

Would that be because of the Royalty payments to use this CODEC?
Seems as though - IF in the future - a majority of mobile phones users were to be on networks with AMR_WB (Adaptive Multirate Wideband - G.722.2) - then Ooma would want to support that also? That could (would) be a huge market to consider.

I don't know the reason, but they could be: royalty costs, effort to implement and maintain, and simply taking time to do something of perceived low value.

Could you elaborate - do you mean any handsets and phones attached to the Ooma - are seen as analog?
What about VOIP phones on the remote end that are HD Voice (g.722) capable?
By the "band they support" - do you mean the the high-end frequency range (7 kHz to 20 kHz)?

The phone you buy is an analog phone. The phone wire from the phone or phone base going to Ooma is all analog. However, if it is a modern cordless phone system the communication from the handset to the base over the air will be digital. Whatever that digital communication is does not matter for this discussion of CODECs because it is just analog over the wire. That said, if that digital communication uses a CODEC that filters out the higher frequencies of the Ooma HD CODEC, the phone itself will be filtering out goodness of the call. It is also possible that wired phones use a low pass filter that has the same effect to reduce potential noise. These are the reasons this discussion exists. As for the plantronics headsets, I highly doubt any wired headset would have any filtering in them.

As for the band they support, you got it. It is the range of frequencies I am referring to. I have a BSEE so I tend to think like that.

I don't really understand the backend switching architecture and why my wife's VOIP system at work showed up as HD on my Telo. My only guess is since everything is becomes digital at some point these days that telcos have two channels of switching calls, one the old school analog way, and two, the new school "what CODEC do we want to play with today?" way. That said, I would assume if you have a telco provided VOIP solution such as my wife's office, or an ISP provided VOIP, that HD might work with Ooma. I just don't know though.

[Davesworld]

It's just that most DECT phones use the g.726 codec between the base and handset which is actually a step down from g.711 and cannot handle frequencies over 4khz. As far as POTS, the real limitation is in the narrowband SLIC used at the CO. G.722 really came about because of ISDN and had nothing whatsoever to do with VOIP. In fact VOIP wasn't even on the radar yet. ISDN does not use the SLIC as it is pure digital to the phone jack.

There existed a proposal to replace all the narrowband SLICS in the CO's to allow g.722 over POTS. In reality, most better ATA's contain wideband SLICS. The wideband SLICS have existed for years now, over ten that I know of.

An interesting scenario is with my Siemens SL785 set. For whatever reason, the handset is capable of G.722 but only if married to an IP base, they chose to use a narrowband codec for the analog base to the handset which would agree with Dennis's test.

Of course, the market just got flooded with a slew of DECT systems that support HD. Vtech, AT&T etc. I would be interested in how well these really work. Wonder if Dennis is testing any?