Telstra Deploys HD Voice in Australia

Australian mobile phone carrier Telstra has just made a new enhancement to its Next G network, with the launch of high-definition voice for its customers.

With HD Voice on the company's Next G network, users can enjoy clearer, crisper calls, along with the suppressing of background noise when needed.

“So you could be calling a friend in Perth from a train in Melbourne and feel like you’re talking face-to-face,” the wireless carrier notes in a recent blog post.

At the moment, Telstra operates not only the first HD Voice network in Australia, but also the largest HD Voice network in the world.

“HD Voice uses state of the art technology known as Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate coding (WB-AMR) which is a wider audio frequency band than the existing network,” the company explains.

“This makes sounds sharper, and also means it’s easier for customers to distinguish between similar sounds like ‘S’ and ‘F’.”

Customers interested in enjoying the technology will need to use HD Voice-compatible mobile phones, the wireless carrier explains.

At the moment, the Nokia 6720, E52, E72 and N8-00 and the HTC Desire S are the only devices that can offer support for the technology, but more of them should be released in the not too far future, including the Sony Ericsson Xperia neo, set to hit shelves next month.

“As it’s a new service, there are currently limited HD-compatible devices available in Australia. However as the demand increases for HD Voice, the number of compatible devices is sure to grow and we expect a large percentage of new devices to support this feature in the coming year,” Telstra notes.

Additional info on how the new HD Voice technology works on the carrier's Next G network can be found in the video embedded below, featuring wireless engineer Jared King.