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Tag: hd-voice

  • Broadcom Offers Open Source HD Voice

    Broadcom announced that it is offering its BroadVoice family of voice codecs royalty-free and without any licensing fees.

    “As a direct response to customer demand for advanced, high-quality voice solutions and development tools”, Broadcom is releasing its wideband and narrowband BroadVoice codecs in both floating-point and fixed-point C code as open source software under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), version 2.1, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

    According to the company, by eliminating the royalties and licensing fees (required by competitive solutions), Broadcom is driving a cost effective transition to HD VoIP applications by enhancing the quality of voice transmissions enabling a higher quality audio experience.

    The availability of BroadVoice source code, under an open source software license, provides the industry with maximum flexibility in how it can be deployed and has the potential of addressing a wide range of next generation voice-related applications.

    "We are seeing an increase in the number of requests for HD voice support from service providers who want to differentiate their telephony services from their competition. By offering high performance and highly efficient BroadVoice voice codecs royalty-free, we are enabling manufacturers and service providers to transition to HD VoIP as a means to significantly improve their customers’ audio experience,"said Dan Marotta, Senior Vice President & General Manager at Broadcom’s Broadband Communications Group.

    Broadcom developed the BroadVoice family of voice codecs with two variants including a 32 kb/s version called BroadVoice32 for wideband (HD) speech sampled at 16 kHz, and a 16 kb/s version called BroadVoice16 for narrowband telephone-bandwidth speech sampled at 8 kHz.

    The company claims BroadVoice advanced voice codecs reduce the latency, complexity and bandwidth usage on a wide range of wideband and narrowband voice applications including voice-over-cable, voice-over-DSL, Ethernet IP phones, Wi-Fi VoIP phones and software-based VoIP client solutions. Additionally, for VoIP applications, distortion and echo are also reduced.

    BroadVoice is available on Broadcom’s cable, DSL and VoIP system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions.

    When standardized by SCTE and ANSI, the BroadVoice16 and BroadVoice32 codecs are called BV16 and BV32, respectively. BV16 is a standard codec in PacketCable 1.5, PacketCable 2.0, ANSI/SCTE 24-21 2006, and ITU-T Recommendation J.161 specifications. BV32 is a standard codec in PacketCable 2.0, ANSI/SCTE 24-23 2007, and ITU-T Recommendation J.361 specifications.

    BroadVoice16 and BroadVoice32 have very similar codec structures. Both variants share most of the algorithm modules so when implemented together, substantial code sharing and memory reduction can be achieved.

    Now Broadcom is providing both the floating-point and fixed-point C source code of BroadVoice16 and BroadVoice 32 under an open source license (LGPL version 2.1) and on a royalty-free basis.

  • Touch Screen and Portability Key To Media Phone Success

    INTERVIEW: In the last six months the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Korea Telecom have launched media phones as the market for connected entertainment products begins to grow.

    But Oz Zimerman, corporate vice president of marketing for the DSP Group, told voip.biz-news that such devices must offer consumers something different – rather than trying to compete with the next generation of PCs.

    The media phone product is currently in its fledgling state but there’s no doubt the segment has the potential to be huge.

    A recent In-Stat report forecast it would become the 4th screen in the home and could also become a next generation business IP phone.

    Devices such as the Verizon Hub and AT&T HomeManager, which support both IP communications and the delivery of Internet information and multimedia content, have already been launched on the market.

    But Oz Zimerman, corporate vice president of marketing for the DSP Group, said that if manufacturers don’t try and differentiate these "4th screens" from the next-generation of PC then they are missing something.

    The DSP Group is currently working on more than 10 projects with OEMs and ODMs involving multimedia devices.

    Oz Zimerman, corporate vice president of marketing, DSP Group

    As well as including a tablet device Zimerman told voip.biz-news that they are developing two multimedia handsets, which he describes as iPhone-like cordless phones.

    He said that in order to be successful media phones need to offer something the other three screens do not have – and at a lower price.

    "In my mind the high end of the media phone, as represented by products such as Verizon’s Hub, may miss the point because they compete with next-generation PCs," he said.

    "We believe the multimedia screens which come with the phones should provide a different value at a different price point."

    To this end, Zimerman said these devices ought to include a phone but not necessarily have a powerful browsing capability.

    "They need to provide instancy and be always-on, have better portability and be easy to use," he said.

    One important aspect of this is getting easy and quick access to information that’s used frequently – something Zimerman said is best achieved using a touch screen.

    He said the result will be an iPhone-like cordless phone with DECT and WiFi, along with a 7-8" touchscreen for accessing multimedia and data.

    Integrated Chips

    DSP, which has been involved in semiconductor development for over two decades, has become a global provider of wireless chipset solutions for converged communications at home.

    Zimerman said the company has 70 per cent of the global market in the wireless home domain – and 100 per cent of that market in the US.

    Its system-on-a-chip solutions enable the combination of wireless voice communications with IP connectivity and multimedia processing.

    The company provides a range of chipsets integrating DECT, Wi-Fi, PSTN and VoIP/CoIP technologies with application processors.

    This enables converged voice, audio, video and data connectivity across diverse consumer products – from cordless and VoIP phones to home gateways and infotainment centers.

    "Our customers are trying to save on investment in R&D," said Zimerman. "They are more willing to work with a more integrated solution that will bring them faster to market with lower risk."

    Bringing VoIP to the Handset

    Earlier this month, DSP announced that its XvoiP Vega Firebird (PNX8181) system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution has been chosen by D-Link Corporation to drive its next-generation cordless-over-IP (CoIP) products.

    D-Link is using DSP’s XvoiP Vega Firebird in its dual-mode IP/DECT phone solution to take advantage of the growing popularity of IP-centric devices in the home.

    This continues to increase through the usage of IP phones, WLAN routers, surveillance cameras, tablets and IPTV.

    Zimerman said that with many current VoIP phones the "VoIP" part ended at the wall, with end users getting none of its capabilities.

    He said this termination plays a big part in the perceived lower quality of VoIP calls.

    "With our solution, the VoIP chips will enable the VoIP features to get to the handset," he said. "So, for example, HD Voice will be get all the way to the handset."

  • HD Voice Has Potential To Reverse Decline in Landlines


    Deploying HD voice services on both landline and mobile systems would provide carriers with a service differentiator and a product with a price premium people are willing to pay for.

    That’s the opinion of VoIP industry expert Jeff Pulver, who says HD voice has the potential to reverse the trend of declining landline sales.

    "People will start to purchase home lines again because it sounds so damn good," he told FierceVoIP.

    Pulver is organizing the HD VoIP Summit, an event which will explore issues associated with the widespread deployment of HD VoIP.

    It is being held in New York on 21 May and will include vendors demonstrating products and platforms, as well as discussions on the issues and challenges in transforming the existing communications infrastructure into one which supports HD.

    "I believe HD voice holds the same promise for the telecom industry as format changes in the entertainment industry," he wrote on his blog.

    "With enough interest, together we can trigger a replacement cycle like the one observed currently with HDTV."

    Pulver said failure to change the communications infrastructure would put traditional communication networks at risk of becoming disintermediated as better sounding means of communication naturally evolve.

    He said the purpose of the event is to bring together a leadership team, built around vision and change, and to bring together telecom catalysts to effect this change.