Later This Year AT&T Will Begin to Offer HD Voice Services

HD Voice is a type of voice technology that aims to deliver clearer voice calls and eliminate most background noise. It does this by using an algorithm that significantly increases the number of voice frequencies transmitted.

This technology requires support from both the network and the devices on each end of the call. HD Voice technology can happen now thanks to Long Term Evolution or 4G LTE. Currently LTE networks are data only with voice running on the traditional, separate channels.

2013 AT&T has announced that later this year it would begin to route voice calling over its LTE network. AT&T’s HD Voice is not the same technology that the European carriers have implemented. While it is true that both are using Voice over LTE (VoLTE), the technology behind HD Voice is different.

Kris Rinne who is senior vice president at AT&T said, “HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy.” She said this speaking at VentureBeat Mobile Summit is Sausalito, CA. Rinne oversees network technologies for AT&T. She mentioned that AT&T will begin to work on what she is referring to as “advanced LTE.” The idea behind this technology is that it should reduce interference and bond together traffic from various frequencies.

One of the major concerns for AT&T users has been dropped called as well as some other issues concerning voice quality. Rinne insists that these issues have all been dealt with and are for all intended purposes over.

T-Mobile has also announced that is will be offering the iPhone 5 on its 4G LTE network will have an early opportunity to deploy improved voice calling. The iPhone 5 is compatible with HD Voice, unfortunately at this time it is restricted to mainly European carriers.

Is HD Voice really such a big thing? I am an AT&T customer and I have very few, if any problems with voice quality or dropped calls. Now, perhaps that fact that I live in New York City has something to do with the fact that I have very good coverage, but will I really need HD Voice.

According to an article in PC Magazine earlier this year Sascha Segan tried AT&T’s HD Voice demo and he said that tried AT&T’s HD Voice demo and is really striking. “The background noise just drops out. The bustle of noises in a coffee shop? Gone. Airport PA announcements? Zapped. Even in a quiet room, voices become much, much richer. It’s an unusally good version of HD Voice.”

AT&T is expecting to launch HD Voice sometime later this year. If the quality is really as good as Segan says then HD Voice is worth the wait.