Orange has announced that its HD Voice service, which offers vastly improved call quality for mobile phone users, is now being tested in the South of England. According to Orange, HD Voice is set to “herald a new era” for mobile communications – looks like we’ll soon find out. Read on for more.
The HD Voice service, which has already been undergone a trial in, er, Moldova, will now be available between Bristol, Reading and Southampton. You can’t just get involved by being an Orange customer, unfortunately – the participants have already been chosen, and Orange says they have been selected in order to test represent a wide range of demographic groups including small businesses, early adopters and “more mainstream” mobile phone users.
For the duration of the HD Voice trial, Orange will keep tabs on customer experience and levels of call quality. If all goes well, we should see the service rolled out across the whole of the UK. Orange says this should happen before the end of the summer.
HD Voice uses a wider speech bandwidth than normal mobile phone calls – 50-7000Hz as opposed to 300-3400Hz – as well as a different speech codec. Orange says this means it can deliver “crystal clear” quality that makes it sound like you’re in the same room as the person on the other end of the line.
Out TBC | £TBC | Orange
