SKYPE says it will write free licenses for its high-quality audio codec in its latest VoIP software to any developer or vendor.
Silk is supposed to deliver sound quality that captures the full sound of the human voice and is the 'super-wideband' codec introduced with the Skype 4.0 client.
Skype thinks that this is a way the whole Voice over IP industry can be improved. µ
L'Inq
PCWorld
Speex is free and open. Easy for anyone to inspect and tweak.
Freedom of Information Act filings show Skype has been facilitating warrantless mass spying by both 'good' governments and obviously abusive ones.
Also, the standard Speex build supports up to 32KHz sampling (a CD is 44KHz) and since it's open source, you can extend that to whatever you want.
How does this compare to Speex?