Today's smartphone's are more advanced than they have ever been, offering cutting edge cameras, speedy web access and pixel-perfect graphics. But given that a phone's primary purpose is to make and receive calls, advances in voice quality have lagged behind which is why your digital voice usually sounds different to real life. Telecom giant Vodafone is looking to improve this, becoming the latest company to introduce new High Definition technology, a gigantic and impressive leap that can be compared to moving from cassettes to CD.
It vastly improves call quality over the operator's 3G network by making use of a much wider frequency range than standard calls. It even blocks out distractions such as background noise and wind, raising the standard of the overall connection.
Normally, calls are made through a narrowband frequency range between 300Hz and 3.4kHz but HD's wideband is between 50Hz and 7kHz. This puts it far closer to the 80Hz to 14kHz range for a human voice and the result is crystal clear sound that is such an improvement, it makes phone conversations appear as if they are taking place in the same room. It can also better detect and interpret whispers.
Illustrating this perfectly is a set of videos called Every Second Counts released by Vodafone which highlights life's most treasured moments. One of them shows a pet lover staying in touch with his excited dog, Buster, who is fooled into believing the owner is with him because the HD audio better matches the pitch and tone of human speech. Another video shows how HD audio can be used in video calls, giving a granddad a first glimpse of his grandson. The emotion in his voice is far clearer than standard definition would ever allow. This is a technology with the potential to better bind relationships.
Vodafone's service is part of a £1 billion network and services upgrade. It is being offered to customers with one of more than 60 compatible phones, automatically switching them to HD for free whenever a call is made to another Vodafone user.
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With breathless enthusiasm, a dad discovers he is to be a granddad when his son delivers the great news with clarity, thanks to HD calls with Vodafone.