WIND Mobile (www.mindmobile.ca) of Canada is rolling out AMR-WB – yes, mobile HD voice service – to its customers across Canada. Sitting at the core of WIND’s Canadian network is Huawei (www.huawei.com).
This is the first announced deployment of AMR-WB in the Americas and also the first credited mobile HD voice deployment for Huawei. Up until now, Ericsson has been the lead player in the deployment of AMR-WB at the network core.
WIND Mobile is running an all IP network and styles itself as creating a better mobile offering for Canada.
From a strategic perspective, it begs the question as to when other North American operators operating GSM networks will take the plunge into mobile HD voice/AMR-WB service. France Telecom has hinted it will be deploying AMR-WB in the Dominican Republic and other Americas territories, but AT&T and T-Mobile haven’t divulged their respective plans.
T-Mobile’s parent Deutsche Telecom has experimented with HD voice in the past, but the company’s U.S. division is dwarfed by the other established CDMA and GSM carriers.
AT&T might be more willing to consider a roll out of HD voice these days as it would provide a short-term competitive advantage to Verizon’s mobile LTE plans and another trick pony since it no longer has a monopoly on the iPhone.
