Fraunhofer IIS Demos Full-HD Voice Over LTE On Android

MojoKid writes "Fraunhofer IIS has chosen Mobile World Congress as the place to present the world's first Full-HD Voice mobile phone calls over an LTE network. Verizon Wireless has toyed with VoLTE (Voice over LTE) before, but this particular method enables mobile phone calls to sound as clear as talking to another person in the same room. Full-HD Voice is already established in several VoIP, video telephony and conferencing systems. However, this will mark the first time Fraunhofer's Full-HD Voice codec AAC-ELD has been integrated into a mobile communications system. Currently, the majority of phone calls are limited to the 3.5 kHz range, whereas humans are able to perceive audio signals up to 20 kHz. The Full-HD Voice codec AAC-ELD gives access to the full audible audio spectrum."

Comments

can you hear me now?

[noh8rz2]

wow this sounds really cool. I think it's so lame that as technology improved in the past 15 years and we went from landlines to cell phones, we took a huge step back in audio quality. Kind of like the step back from CDs to MP3s. I hope this catches on - do both parties need to use it? Perhaps it will be directly implemented in Skype or something.

Re:can you hear me now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype currently uses the SILK codec, which should give similar quality.

Skype was also involved with the IETF working group to produce a new codec (called Opus) which is also high quality and will hopefully see more widespread adoption than this AAC-ELD codec.

Would be interested in seeing some comparisons between Opus and AAC-ELD, especially since Opus can do both voice and music due to its hybrid nature.

Re:can you hear me now?

[dgatwood]

Saying that FLAC is better than MP3 is like saying that an M1A1 is better than a smart car. If you care only about getting something from point A to point B undamaged, then yes, it is. If you care at all about efficiency, not so much.

As for Ogg Vorbis, I suspect the patent FUD spread by Fraunhofer pretty much sealed its fate as far as commercial vendor adoption was concerned, which in turn has limited its uptake by the general public.

humans are able to perceive audio up to 20 kHz...

[John Hasler]

Only those who have not had high-intensity hoot and thump music piped into their ear canals for the last ten years. Most twentysomethings won't be able distinguish HD audio from a 1940s telephone. They'll buy it anyway, though.