Rod Ullens: iNum, High Def transport, and the HD codec war
Rodrigue Ullens, Voxbone CEO, is scheduled to participate in a panel discussion of "HD Carrier Interconnection" at the HD Communications Summit today. I talked with Rod as he walked between meetings.
[CORRECTION: iNum has not yet deployed Skype's SILK codec.]
Skype Journal: You're going to the HD Summit. What are you announcing?
Rodrigue Ullens: We are announcing the iNum network now supports high definition voice calls. [See news release below the fold.]
There don't seem to be phone handsets that capture voice in high quality. How do you solve the garbage in, garbage out problem?
Our only role is to play the middle man, pretty much. We expect, of course, to receive a voice call in high definition. For example, if today we were supporting the SILK codec. When you call an iNumber from Skype, we would receive the voice call from Skype with the quality that Skype hands it off. It depends of course on the handset and the phone that has transcoded the voice into a high def call. The only thing we do is convert from one codec to another and be the middleman helping networks talk to each other.
We've talked about high def audio for years. Why now?
Because I think it is the right opportunity in the sense that we see more and more networks that do support it. Maybe Skype has had it for a while but there are now other networks that are just coming up right now to support high definition. Same thing for some of the handsets, some of the phones. It's just now getting some momentum. We want to be part of that momentum and enable different networks to talk to each other.
To benefit from high definition it has to be end to end. You still have a lot of networks that support high definition but just in their island.
I think we have another value to bring by having identifiers, item number that support high definition voice calls. And I think just now it's starting to be interesting.
Practically speaking, what is high definition or high quality?
Technically, if you've been able to capture a higher frequency than the one from a traditional phone network. Where you sample eight thousand times per second with eight bits of data per sample; it gives you 64k of data uncompressed. A regular ISDN call.
With high definition you sample more and capture a higher frequency of the voice so you have an impression of almost speaking right next to the person.
The only codecs we've implemented in the network is the G722 codec. It's the first one that's available very easily, without royalty and so on.
Now we're working with Skype to implement SILK. With Skype, when I've made Skype calls and when the speakers are high def and when the person has a high def mic, you really hear the difference.
For high def to become common and widespread, does the industry need to standardize on one or two codecs?
I suppose that's also part of the reason why Skype and everybody is now trying to make its codec the standard one. I don't know who will win. I haven't tested yet, but I have the impression that just like you can transcode from a regular codec to another one, you can transcode between high definition codecs. You will never have just one codec. That's just the way it is; everybody wants to push their codec. That's also why you will always need people facilitating communication between enterprises for a long time. Codecs will coexist for a long time.
tags: skype, silk, codecs, inum, voxbone, codec, hidef, audio, sound, standards
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The release:
Voxbone Equips Globally-Local iNum Numbers With High-Definition Voice
IP-to-IP Calls to iNum Numbers Can Be Answered Anywhere and Convey in-the-Room Sound Quality
NEW YORK – Sept. 15, 2009 – Voxbone, a leading provider of international VoIP origination services and telephone numbers to communications service providers, call centers and multinational businesses, today announced that its international, geographically-independent number service, iNum®, now supports high-definition (HD) voice. iNum adds a missing piece – a uniform identifier – to enable HD calling.
As long as both endpoints are HD-enabled, calls to iNum numbers will convey a sound quality that far surpasses traditional circuit-switched telephony.
The new capability, announced at the HD Communications Summit in New York, adds the benefit of in-the-room sound quality to iNum's location neutrality and cost savings on international calls.
Prefaced with the ITU-assigned 883 code, iNum numbers refer to the Internet in the same way that 44 refers internationally to the U.K. and 1 refers to the U.S. A call to an iNum number is routed first to Voxbone, which carries it over the expensive, long-distance leg of the route before delivering it to the appropriate service provider, which terminates the call to its subscriber.
A high-definition voice signal cannot fit through the frequency constraints of Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) – a fact that limits the HD benefit to end-to-end IP calls. However, most iNum calls should be able to support HD voice because most iNum traffic is transmitted by service providers that have migrated to IP or begun operation as VoIP carriers.
"In equipping our iNum numbers with high-definition voice, we are bringing a key piece – a uniform identifier – to the emerging HD ecosystem," said Rod Ullens, Voxbone CEO. "Many endpoints and a lot of isolated networks, such as Skype, already support HD, but there needs to be a standard way for any service provider to reach a particular HD endpoint. HD-enabled iNum offers the perfect solution."
For example, Ullens said: "The HD voice capability enables a global help desk to publicize one 'local' number for all English-speaking customers anywhere in the world, another for all Spanish-speaking customers, and so on. The clarity of high definition tremendously helps callers to these numbers, who often are listening in their second or third languages or listening to non-native speakers."
In another scenario, a call-conferencing provider could use iNum for an internationally "local" access number. In-the-room voice quality frequently has been noted for alleviating "ear strain" and improving attentiveness on long conference calls.
Voxbone is beginning its HD support with the wideband G.722 codec and plans to add other codecs in the fourth quarter of this year.
# # #
About Voxbone
Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Voxbone provides worldwide local and toll-free phone numbers over its own private intercontinental VoIP network. The all-IP architecture of the Voxbone core network enables customers to rapidly deploy new communications services with local presence while reducing costs. It delivers high-quality call origination from 48 countries and 4,000 cities, as well as iNum numbers that enable billing as local calls when dialed through participating carriers anywhere in the world. Through its number inventory, network, self-administered provisioning and comprehensive SIP adherence, Voxbone's global infrastructure enables its customers to expand to international markets quickly and efficiently. Founded in 2002 and privately held, Voxbone is the only carrier licensed in all 27 countries of the European Union. For more information, visit www.voxbone.com.
Photo credit: Copyright 2009 James Duncan Davidson.
Labels: business, codecs, HDVoice, silk, SIP, skype, technology, voip
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