GSA's Updated Report Confirms Rise in HD Voice Services

Earlier last week, the GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) published an updated report that confirms that HD voice services have been launched by 51 mobile networks in 38 countries, ultimately revealing that the number of mobile networks now offering customers HD voice service is 60% higher than one year ago.

In supporting mobile networks and an improved user experience, mobile HD Voice uses Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband technology (W-AMR, standardized by 3GPP), enabling high-quality voice calls. Becoming the market reality on numerous GSM, WCDMA-UMTS, and LTE networks, it provides significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones supporting the feature.

Mobile networks in Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong S.A.R., India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mauritius, Moldova, The Netherlands, The Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Réunion, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, Uganda, and the UK have commercially launched HD Voice services. 

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Additionally, competing mobile operators in 11 markets – Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey and UK, offer HD Voice service. Furthermore, GSA has also published an update on the number of models of HD voice phones that have been launched in the market.

The new report confirms 127 phones supporting HD Voice (W-AMR) have been announced by 14 manufacturers, including the most popular brands and products for professional broadcasters. This figure compares with 52 HD voice phones that were announced one year ago. With some working on GSM networks and some on LTE networks (VoLTE), however, most of these devices operate on 3G/HSPA networks.

“The number of models of HD voice phones more than doubled in the past year, and over 50 networks have launched HD voice service. To continue the market development, all smartphones need to ship with W-AMR activated by default,” concluded Alan Hadden, President of GSA.