November 11, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA - HD voice is showing continued momentum. This week alone Polycom unveiled new high-definition-enabled desktop phones, Vivox Inc. announced it has licensed Polycom's HD codec for use in the online gaming space, and hosted unified communications provider Broadcore emphasized it is pushing HD voice as a differentiator.
The new HD products introduced by Polycom this week at VoiceCon include the SoundPoint IP 335 desktop phone and the CX300 desktop phone. The 335 is an entry-level SIP phone list priced at $199. With the introduction of this product, Tim Yankey, director of product marketing of voice communications solutions, says that Polycom now offers HD voice in a range of products ranging from the high end to the lower end.
The CX300, meanwhile, is the newest addition to the CX product family optimized for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and is priced at $169. The HD-enabled product is a USB-based device with a full dial pad, speakerphone and backlight two-line display.
It was also announced this week that Vivox, which provides voice services to online game and social web application developers, will license the royalty free Polycom HD Siren 14/G 722.1C voice codec.
"This HD story is just starting to build," say Yankey.
Jeff Rodman, Polycom's co-founder and CTO, agrees, noting various other important developments on the HD audio front.
With the introduction of the 20 kiloHertz codec from the ITU, he says, HD audio now spans the whole range of sounds the ear can hear. That codec is available royalty free fromEricsson and Polycom, which just released the new capability in its 1500 product.
Meanwhile, there's a lot happening with HD voice in Europe, Rodman says, adding that Orange just rolled it out.
According to Rodman, there's a race afoot between the large and smaller service providers on who will be first out with HD voice.
"That HD voice is a wow factor among customers, and they really see the benefits of that right off the bat," says Dean Manzoori, vice president of marketing strategy at Broadcore, a hosted UC provider that uses Polycom phones for its services.
Meanwhile, Skype already has a huge deployment of HD voice.
"You might almost call them the third leg to this race," says Rodman.
Indeed. All of Skype's services today are based on the Skype wideband codec known as SILK, says Chris Moore, senior product manager for business at Skype. He adds that SILK is now going through IETF standardization.
There's also been a lot of talk in the industry about creating a peering capability involving HD voice. Rodman says that could involve service providers to do a database dip so the network knows which endpoints are HD-capable.
Rodman says Polycom is involved in an HD peering summit to bring the industry together on such peering.
There's also been talk among BroadSoft -based service providers like Broadcore to band together on peering to deliver broader QoS-based services and HD audio could be part of the mix, adds Manzoori.
"As that grows, it's bad news for the traditional PSTN," he says.