HD Voice News

Aastra and TurboBridge announce HD voice team-up

Doug Mohney — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:15:29 +0000

Aastra (www.aastrausa.com) and TurboBridge (www.turbobridge.com) have announced a bundling/trial deal for Aastra SIP phones. Look for smiles from both parties.

The two are offering a 60 day free trial of the TurboBridge “HD audio” conferencing service to Aastra SIP phone customers, carriers, and resellers. Aastra supports G.722 via its Hi-Q audio technology and G.722 is the primary HD voice codec that TurboBridge supports.

TurboBridge says it is providing unlimited free conferencing by simply connecting any Aastra SIP phone directly to TurboBridge via a SIP URL. More information can be found at http://www.turbobridge.com/?promo=aastra.

This is the latest HD voice coup for Aastra. Its 67xx series phones are in use at 8×8, the largest HD voice provider in North America; 8×8 had over 70,000 Aastra phones deployed in January 2010 and continues to grow at a substantial pace.

Background stories–

TurboBridge focuses on HD voice conferencing without the whistles

8×8 announces HD voice upgrade completed

IT EXPO – Aastra goes G.722, 8×8 upgrade in October

Largest G.722 HD voice deployments around the globe

Aastra plugs Hi-Q G.722 codec on YouTube

Skype releases source code for SILK

Doug Mohney — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:40:38 +0000

Credit where credit is due: @voiploser and Michael Graves provided this tip

In its latest filing with the ITEF, Skype (www.skype.com) released the source code to SILK under an open license, with the code presented as an appendix to the filing.

Codec junkies can review “draft-vos-silk-01” at http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vos-silk-01, with the fixed-point C code starting at page 28 and running to the end of page 565. The code is being provided under a BSD license if this reporter is deciphering the legalese and components are “provided without warranty” as described in the BSD license.

Michael Graves (http://www.mgraves.org/voip/) tweeted that Speex author Jean-Marc Valin grabbed the code from the ITEF wideband mailing list to try it out, but no word back as of this evening as to the results of his efforts.

Recent news on Skype’s efforts to conquer the universe–

Samsung TVs join the Skype lineup

CES 2010: Skype TV media tour in pictures

CES – Trinity Convergence provides Skype stack for HDTV

CES 2010 – Skype talks TV, swarms event

Skype gets its software into Panasonic, LG HDTVs

More information about @voiploser and Michael Graves–

Wideband voices 2009 – 9 people talking about HD Voice that you need to listen to

GIPS lands HD voice in Turkey

Doug Mohney — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:09:09 +0000

Global IP Solutions (www.gipscorp.com) has secured Argela Technologies, a subsidary of Turk Telekom, as a customer for VoiceEngine Mobile to insure “excellent” call quality on TT’s WiRO mobile soft client.

TT WiRO works like most other soft clients these days, allowing customers to avoid international roaming charges by using WiFi and a broadband connection. Customers can use either a mobile phone or a laptop to make bypass calls. GIPS Voice Engine Mobile was selected for its ability to provide “the best quality” VoIP while also smoothing over IP network difficulties.

GIPS’s codecs and IP communications software can be found in soft clients from AOL, Cisco (WebEx), Citrix, CommuniGate, KT Networks, Nimbuzz, Oracle, PCCW, Samsung, and Yahoo!, among others.

Of late, GIPS is gaining more customer traction in the mobile softclient space, especially centered around the iPhone. Last month, the company announced a win in with Toktumi’s Line2 iPhone app and a video chat/HD voice package for Apple iPhone developers.

For more on GIPS–

iPhone Line2 client uses iSAC HD voice codec calls

GIPS releases iPhone video chat/HD voice package

GIPS provides HD Voice for Android, Nimbuzz

Largest G.722 HD voice deployments around the globe

Doug Mohney — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:04:25 +0000

This list is a moving target/snapshot of what is known and confirmed.

1) France Telecom/Orange – Over 500,000 G.722 endpoints – Reported May, 2009

Despite some prodding, France Telecom has not yet updated its broadband HD voice numbers since reporting them last year in New York City. The numbers cited are assumed to mostly be in the consumer realm in France proper.

2) 8×8 – 70,000+ – Reported January 2010

With the largest single “island” of HD voice services in North America, 8×8 is on a path to gaining ground on FT’s “stale” number of 500,000. How much ground is up for debate, but the company continues to report significant month-over-month growth for its hosted business VoIP service and has a deal with Level 3 that gives it a foothold into easier government sales.

And what’s good for 8×8 is good for Aastra, its handset supplier.

3) Ooma – 25,000 – Reported January 2010

Focused on the North American consumer market, “Hello, Hello” on Ooma’s second-generation Telo hardware means support for G.722. According to the company, the number represents unit sales for the fourth quarter of 2009, the first quarter when Telo appeared in sales channels. With a total of around 100,000 units sold in 2009, Ooma would appear to be on track to posting substantial numbers by the end of 2010.

4) Global Crossing – 5,600 – Reported December 2009

International long-haul carrier Global Crossing has a mixture of desktop phones and softclients in internal corporate use.

5) Alteva – 5,000 – Reported Fall 2009

Alteva has a mixture of Polycom and Cisco phones deployed among its hosted business clients.

6) Verizon – “Nearly 5,000” Polycom HD phones – Reported mid-2009

Verizon converted its Basking Ridge, New Jersey headquarters over to HD voice as the company’s aging VoIP gear (gee, who thought you’d hear that phrase) needed to replaced, making it the largest HD voice installation at a North American carrier.

7) Simple Signal – “4,000 to 5,000” endpoints – Reported February 2009

SimpleSignal CEO Dave Gilbert on-the-fly estimate

Penn State University – 4,500 – Reported Fall 2009.

The main campus at PSU has around 4,500 Cisco phones deployed.

Unconfirmed large G.722 islands

BT – Nearly “2 million” end-points

All of the BT VoIP “Hub” gear is supposedly G.722 capable. but it is not explicitly clear if the end-points BT provides support for G.722 or another HD voice codec. BT has a mixture of Thomson and Gigaset hardware

Other than a throwaway line in the “New BT Hub Phone” description saying the device “provides hi-definition sound when calling another BT Hub Phone, the BT Softphone or a BT Videophone,” the company has done little to define or highlight what it mean by “High definition Sound (Hi-dS).”

Telstra – 11,000

Australia’s incumbent phone company has been running a hosted HD voice services for businesses since 2009, but there has been no confirmation that Telstra has up to 11,000 HD voice endpoints in operation within the company.

Texas Tech University; other universities

Larger universities who have migrated to VoIP may have also turned on HD voice on a campus-wide basis a la Penn State.

TurboBridge focuses on HD voice conferencing without the whistles

Doug Mohney — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:46:56 +0000

With many participants in the conference services game, TurboBridge (www.turbobridge.com) has decided to keep its approach simple, sticking to SIP-based conferencing, a service “priced to sell” and all-you-can eat conferencing plan.

“Consumers are numb to the ‘better message’,” said TurboBridge CEO Chris Koehncke, “The HD message falls on deaf ears, it’s not until people experience it that they get it.”

Sticking with SIP conferencing with HD voice as its primary offering, TurboBridge is focusing on ways to improve the audio quality of the call over more elaborate features. “We’re not trying to re-think conferencing, we don’t want the technology to get into the way,” Koehncke said.

Offering access via a hosted, public URL means customers can call in from anywhere around the world. “Yes, it’s a security risk, but it’s the business we’re in,” stated Koehncke. “We have to be prepared to deal with that.”

“Pricing it to sell” means personal monthly plans as low as $8.95 per month, with toll-free access between 4 to 6 cents per minute. “We’re competing with Intercall at 8 to 10 cents per minute,” Koehncke said. Access via one of the company’s local numbers, Skype, a web-based client, or via SIP phone is free, with the use of web or SIP phone enabling HD audio via G.722; support for other codecs are in the works.

All-you-can-eat conferencing for TurboBridge means unlimited minutes and ease of use in creating and administrating conference bridges.

Starting operations in May 2009, the company has quietly been at work building its business and has an established itself as a wholesale provider to a number of operators. “Someone dials a number, [the service providers] sends it to us in SIP,” stated Koehncke.

HD Voice-related events in March

Doug Mohney — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:11:07 +0000

Webinars

“Part 1: The Year of HD”,” Tuesday, March 9 at 2 PM EST

TMC (www.tmcnet.com) is hosting, Dialogic (www.dialogic.com) is sponsoring and attendees will learn about the surging use of HD voice in North American and
around the globe; Advantages of HD voice over a regular PSTN call and; How affordable HD voice is compared to simple VoIP.

Events

CTIA (www.ctia.org) March 22-25, Las Vegas

Building on the buzz of Mobile World Congress and France Telecom’s sweeping mobile HD voice announcements, several companies are expected are expected to announce interesting news in Vegas. Expect some core network, more softclient/OTT in a 4G context, and at least one two-way video rollout. The last won’t be HD voice, but if you can run two-way video…

VoiceCon Orlando (www.voicecon.com/orlando/) March 22-25, Orlando

The best place to catch up with the business enterprise telephony crowd. Video and unified communications appears to have crowded out a dedicated session for HD voice issues.

Editor-in-Chief Doug Mohney will be at VoiceCon from early Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon at about 2:30 PM. Email him directly at dmohney@hdvoicenews.com to arrange a meeting.

Look for HD voice to (hopefully) come up in the broader discussion of “Hardphones, Softphones & Next-Gen Systems” on Wednesday, March 24 at 1 PM.

8×8 Hosted HD Voice now available over New Edge Networks

Doug Mohney — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:43 +0000

New Edge Networks, the business services side of Earthlink, has announced that 8×8 has joined its “ecosystem” of business applications. New Edge business customers can access 8×8’s hosted HD voice network via MPLS and 8×8 customers can ride New Edge’s MPLS network with all the advantages it carries, such as end-to-end traffic prioritization and predictable applications performance.

Putting aside all the New Edge rah-rah about QoS, 8×8 also gets access to the New Edge sales force and can work directly with New Edge account execs located in major cities nationwide, so 8×8 gets more feet on the street promoting its product.

Further, this is the second partnership deal 8×8 has recently cut to extend its sales footprint. Last year, 8×8 joined up with Level 3 to offer hosted VoIP services to the Federal Government – a move that has long-term implications for the HD voice community. Any government agency purchasing 8×8 hosted services automagically gets G.722 HD voice.

SimpleSignal announces HD voice conference bridge

Doug Mohney — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:40:12 +0000

SimpleSignal has added an HD voice conference bridge solution to its list of hosted PBX calling features and voice apps. Cost for the new service is a flat rate of $29 per month for up to 100 calls to participate in unlimited HD audio conference calls – volume discounts available.

Use of the HD conference bridge (well, the HD voice feature) requires G.722. SimpleSignal anticipates that the biggest initial beneficiaries of HD quality will be its customers with multiple office locations that use a conference bridge as a regular part of their business routine.

Features of SimpleSignal’s HD Conference bridge include “reservationless” conference start, up to 100 participants, entry/exit notification using chimes or recorded names, self muting, conference termination by the host, participant count, private “roll call” to get a playback of recorded names still on a call, and a security lock.

In the release, SimpleSignal pooh-poohs toll-free access to a conference bridge, noting that they don’t offer it to keep costs down and most business phone numbers are already on unlimited long-distance calling plans already.

Recent HD voice pieces published on other news sites

Doug Mohney — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:06:15 +0000

HD Voice News Editor-in-Chief Doug Mohney has published a handful of pieces at other sites over the past month–

TechEye (www.techeye.net)

The Two Minute Guide to mobile HD voice

TMC (www.tmcnet.com)

A Half-Full Glass of HD Voice from Mobile World Congress – And Getting Fuller

Who is ‘Doing’ HD Voice? Five Companies to Think About

Conferencing: The ‘Killer App’ for HD Voice

VoIP Supply (www.voipsupply.com)

There’s a multi-page HD voice information pack in progress that should go up later this month, along with a bunch of other HD voice info.

Samsung TVs join the Skype lineup

Doug Mohney — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:00:17 +0000

Skype’s (www.skype.com) march to conquer the living room and consumers continues. Samsung and Skype announced that Samsung’s latest and greatest broadband HDTVs will feature embedded Skype software for voice and video calls.

The new Samsung LED 7000 and 8000 series models are shipping with Skype software today in Korea and worldwide in the first half of 2010, saith the press release. At CES in January, Skype had Panasonic and LG lined up as the first cool kids on the block with voice and video calling.

Consumers will attach a FREETALK TV Camera for Samsung to the TV; the LED 7000 and 8000 series boxes already include Samsung’s free Internet@TV service allowing access to select online content.

Voice calls will use the SILK codec, according to the release – a statement which pretty much puts to bed the debate if Skype on TV can/will support SILK and HD voice…

Related articles of interest

CES 2010: Skype TV media tour in pictures

CES – Trinity Convergence provides Skype stack for HDTV

CES 2010 – Skype talks TV, swarms event

Skype gets its software into Panasonic, LG HDTVs