Ericsson makes an HD voice call over CDMA

SWEDISH MOBILE COMPANY Ericsson has claimed it made a High Definition voice call over a wideband CDMA network.

Actually, Ericsson went further than that, trumpeting the HD voice call over CDMA as no less than a world first for the mobile communications industry. We can't verify Ericsson's claim, so we will take that with cup of salt. But the company reckons the capability will finally open up the possibility of crystal clear HD mobile audio fidelity rather than the traditionally poor audio quality experienced on most mobile calls.

Ericsson made the HD voice call using what it called the Enhanced Variable Rate Codec Narrowband-Wideband (EVRC-NW) codec and said that CDMA HD voice has a wider spectral range of 50Hz to 7,000Hz. This range is meant to make the quality of the call much better and boost the signal to noise ratio so there less background noise, even if calls are made from noisy environments.

The Swedes claim it's a good technology for mobile operators because it will offer a better user experience for callers. HD voice calls bump up the bandwidth requirements but they are nowhere near the data crunching and bandwidth sucking needs of HD video, and CDMA is wide enough to cope. Orange was already trialing HD voice calls last year and Bluetooth frequency was boosted to handle HD audio.

"We have demonstrated the first high-definition CDMA voice call in the world over an Ericsson network utilizing the new EVRC-NW 3GPP2 standard codec and ensuring interoperability with existing functionality while easing the rollout of future wideband services," said Ericsson CDMA VP Surya Bommakanti. µ