Mobile and fixed-line operators have shown little interest in improving the voice quality of phone calls, but the internet phone company Skype came out with a compelling reason for them to do so on Monday.
Speaking at the eComm conference in Silicon Valley, Jonathan Rosenberg, Skype‘s chief technology officer, said its users were talking for almost 50 per cent longer on calls delivered in high-definition quality.
Mr Rosenberg unveiled a chart of different degrees of voice quality offered to customers – from the G.729 codec offering quality close to existing telephone calls to the Silk SWB (Super Wide Band) Skype codec offering “high-definition voice”.
It showed a rising curve of satisfaction and time spent talking, with the difference being almost 50 per cent between G.729 and Silk SWB.
“By making an experience high-quality and interactive, the closer you approach [to feeling like the other caller is] being there in person, the longer you’re engaged…and I think that’s exciting,” he said.
More minutes can mean more money for operators. Mr Rosenberg said Skype itself had served more than 36bn minutes in Skype-to-Skype calls during the fourth quarter of 2009, up from 20bn a year earlier (slide pictured).
The HD Voice movement is getting louder and clearer – it had its own summit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show and the feature is beginning to appear in VoIP providers’ services. It is set to grow in tandem with high-quality video calls as they become more common on handsets.
