The emergence of high definition options finally gives the voice business an opportunity to accelerate innovation.  This represents very good news as the pace of innovation separates the prosperous from declining sectors in telecom.  Doug Mohney argues the arrival of HD sets in motion a Third Wave in telecom as significant as the emergence of mobility in the 80′s and VoIP in the 90′s.

The proliferation of email and adoption of communication tools available from Facebook, Twitter, or the myriad of applications enabled by mobile phone data plans shrinks demand for voice services. The prospect of HD reversing this decline means a voice industry that can move from harvesting back to growth mode.  HD can alter the way end users consume voice as the cell phones did by introducing mobility and VoIP did by making unlimited and international calling affordable.

The failure to improve voice quality limits the ways people can use telephones.  The torture technique otherwise known as music-on- hold becomes something entirely different with devices that support HD.  HD can save businesses from confusion about whether the deal is $50 million or $15 million.  International diplomacy gets transformed as HD makes it easier to understand people speaking in other than their native language.  Does the reliance of teens on texting reflect a love of text or the fact poor cell phone voice quality makes holding a conversation by any other means difficult? 

An HD call offers a level of intimacy that replicates the in-person experience far better than traditional telephones, but HD requires compatible devices on both ends of the connection.  This means adoption will need to proceed incrementally via strong links at first in a manner similar to fax machines.  HD devices and software already provide a relatively simple means for people with intensive communication needs to set up “hotlines” between each other.  In addition to offering better voice quality, keep in mind HD calls get setup as end to end data calls via the Internet or other data connections, so the usual telephone metering for time and distance do not apply. 

Everything in life comes in a range of quality options as a function of need and willingness to pay, except telephone voice quality. President Obama suffers the same mediocre voice quality in conversations with world leaders as a teenager planning a party on Friday night.  The arrival of HD is poised to transform the landscape, because the factors limiting the world to a single level of voice quality no longer apply.   The transition to HD sets in motion a process of continuous improvement that can continue to drive demand year in and year out.   Surf’s up!

Jeff Pulver is the Chairman and Founder of pulver.com. He is the publisher of The Pulver Report and creator of the industry standard Voice on the Net (VON) events. Additionally, Jeff is the founder of FWD, the VON Coalition, PrimeTimeRewind.TV, Vivox and is the co-founder of VoIP provider, Vonage.

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“Q: How do you make an HD radio executive bang his head against the wall?

A: Ask him, “What’s HD radio?”"

This was the opening paragraph for David Pogue‘s article in The New York Times today.

It resonated well with me as this is one of the issues that I face when explaining GIPS technology to people when I first meet with them. “Q: What’s HD Voice?” A: HD voice is the clarity of voice you hear when the audio bandwidth, which ranges between 50 Hz-7 kHz using a sampling rate of 16 kHz provides clear, concise speech without jitter, delay and the snap crackle and pops that you get with regular phones…

Just like HD radio, HD voice requires more than a one sentence explanation and the best way to illustrate HD voice quality is to listen to it. Anyone who has used Skype, Googletalk, Nimbuzz or Yahoo! will know what I am talking about – great sound quality.

I’m stupefied that even today most of us still tolerate bad quality on our phones – akin to listening to an AM radio station. A gentle reminder here: AM broadcast technology was used at the start of the 1900′s! Even radio got FM, and now they have HD!  What’s up with that?

While GIPS doesn’t make lager, if it did, it probably would be the best lager in the world. Fortunately, for service providers, application developers and enterprises we do make the best audio and video software for real-time communication… Cue the light refreshing video

Thankfully, there appears to be more recognition of the need for HD Voice and there will be more in-depth discussion of the subject next month when Jeff Pulver gathers industry heavyweights for the HD Communications summit in New York.  We hope to see you there.

Google’s purchase of Grand Central in July 2007 has been in stealth mode for some time but with the announcement earlier this week that Google Voice is being previewed by current Grand Central customers it won’t be long before Google starts creating more waves. Stay tuned to Google’s voice blog.

Having visited a number of tradeshows and conferences in 2009 it seems that in general voice is going to be a major topic of discussion this year, particularly HD-voice.

Jeff Pulver, co-founder of Vonage and former creator of the VON trade events will be holding an HD VoIP summit in late May. The summit will “look at the issues and challenges for the transformation of the existing communications infrastructure into one which supports HD.” I couldn’t agree more, HD voice/VoIP or wideband VoIP (as engineers prefer to call it) has the ability to transform our communications, whether it’s through our mobiles, PCs, office or home phones.

All of this is positive news for both the industry and consumer.  It was not that long ago (relatively) that nearly everyone with access to the internet used a dial-up connection. VoIP calls were possible then, and still are over a dial-up connection but the sound is akin to that of a regular landline or mobile phone.  For me, HD-voice is akin to the difference between using a dial-up connection and broadband. Once you’ve used a broadband connection there is no going back it will be the same with HD-voice… try it sometime.