Tweeting to @DougonIPcomm, @radinfo thinks getting an HD phone is “too early” because there aren’t enough peer-to-peer interconnections right now.
The first part of the premise is wrong, while the second part is — for now — correct.
If a business are currently shopping for an IP PBX/IP telephony and/or VoIP handsets, you would be foolish NOT to put G.722 wideband (i.e. HD voice) on the check list as a necessary feature for three reasons:
- 1) You’re going to be living with that hardware for 3-7 years, so you might as well shell out a little extra to be “future proofed” — unless you’re willing to bet that HD voice services will not proliferate that fast in 3-7 years.
- 2) Cisco has a $130 list price HD phone for businesses, Polycom has a $199 entry-level list price phone — and who pays list price these days, hmm? So you aren’t paying that much extra…
- 3) A lot of people ALREADY have HD Voice, but they just don’t know it. Avaya’s line of phones, most of Polycom’s gear (now all of it), some of Aastra’s gear, some of the ADTRAN handsets. As I noted when I was at AstriCon last month, you can’t throw a rock without hitting an HD capable phone.
As for the premise that “there’s not enough” peering/interconnects, there are at least two efforts going on TODAY to fix that and a third capable of HD/SIP peering/exchange.
- 1) XConnect offers a SIP exchange service.
- 2) Alteva and SimpleSignal, along with a bunch of other business VoIP providers, are in the process of joining together for SIP exchange in an IP peering fabric
- 3) Sprint’s PIN network is capable of HD voice peering through SIP, but Sprint needs to hurry up and get out a higher-level offering, rather than pacing themselves by what the North American cable companies want…
Net-net: There’s no excuse for NOT buying an “HD ready” phone today.
- Doug Mohney
Editor-in-Chief
I didn’t say don’t buy an HD Voice handset. I did say that most networks can only support On-Net HD Voice calls which will make the HD Voice experience limited for most callers at this time.
There are pockets of ITSP Inter-Connection to pass HD traffic, but if it was more than a pocket, there would not have been two or three “summits” about it in the last 2 months.
Most ITSP drop to PSTN or cell networks because that is where a majority of calls are. There isn’t enough VoIP to VoIP calling yet.
Buy the HD handset – lord knows that Cisco and Polycom need to move product, so hype away, but if it’s already sub-$200 image what a cool HD handset will cost in 6 months?
SS/Alteva = “in process” — heck, they just agreed to it 3 weeks ago.
Sprint has serious financial and org issues and again, HD is coming soon there too.
You forgot Arbinet and VPF — they do SIP Peering as well. But HD Voice is just not there yet. Fortune 1000 certainly internally. On-Net = yes. But its early.
I guess it’s still early for Fax over IP too because most networks are not IP end-to-end. (That’s the point by the way: set proper expectations with your consumer).
I train people to use an HD Voice demo to sell Hosted PBX. So I understand the concept, but what disappointment when Joe Sales calls the office from his mobile and it sounds like a tin can.
I just want a cell phone that has a decent speaker, so I can understand what the caller is saying.
Alteva and SimpleSignal have been talking about the IP peering fabric among a larger group of independent hosted VoIP providers for a number of months and they’re looking at alternatives to scale. I suspect once they decide upon a path, you’ll see another 4-8 service providers sign up fairly quickly because A) They want to avoid per-minute and termination charges as much as possible and B) Everyone understands the need to “grow” HD Voice pools…
And pools is a multiple, because some people will go the Alteva route, some will go the XConnect/third-party route and some will get on Sprint.
Sprint’s IP backbone and infrastructure are rock solid and the PIN Network for SIP transit is another alternative.
Fax over IP is a legacy technology with a 21st century band aid. I’m not sure there is any “fixing” left.
There’s no easy solution on the horizon for poor cell phone equipment in the U.S. today and that’s NOT an *HD* issue per say, but a wireless issue, not a HD Voice issue; Europe will likely have some interesting things to say and there’s some enterprise “thought” going on already over at Verizon on cell phone quality now that they have HD booted up at HQ.