Will the Obi200 be updated to support wideband calls with GV?
RFC3261:
Quote from: SteveInWA on May 01, 2018, 03:37:02 pm
There are no analog telephones that support HD Voice (wideband).
As I recall, there *was* a (polycom?) conference phone that could support wideband (only to a like device) over POTS by creating a tunnel to a like device over the POTS network and passing the wideband audio through the tunnel. It was not a general solution, but it did exist some time ago.
SteveInWA:
Quote from: RFC3261 on May 01, 2018, 08:17:56 pm
Quote from: SteveInWA on May 01, 2018, 03:37:02 pm
There are no analog telephones that support HD Voice (wideband).
As I recall, there *was* a (polycom?) conference phone that could support wideband (only to a like device) over POTS by creating a tunnel to a like device over the POTS network and passing the wideband audio through the tunnel. It was not a general solution, but it did exist some time ago.
Ok so that is a one-off. The point Geoff and I are making is: wideband audio is only as good as the weakest point in the chain. It's like feeding a firehose into a garden hose. The water can only come out so fast.
If you have a IP phone on both ends of the call, and if that call stays on-network for one VoIP carrier (e.g. between one Google Voice number and another, or between one Callcentric number and another), or between two carriers that are peering and not detouring through the PTSN, AND both phones support the same WB CODECs, then the call is capable of WB audio. The two dominant WB CODECS I am aware of are OPUS and AMR-WB. OPUS is what Google Voice is using now, and OBi IP phones support OPUS. AMR-WB is largely used on VoLTE, and I don't know if/when the mobile carriers will be able to interconnect with VoIP networks using WB.
For example, I talked with a friend the other day, using my OBi 2182 phone, and his Polycom IP phone, and the call was in glorious OPUS WB.
andyo:
Yeah, I understand the "weakest link" thing. What I wasn't aware of was that no phones support wideband; I thought some of them supported getting connected to VoIP boxes such as the Obi200 and others and offer wideband support. I guess AT&T is using deceiving marketing here for instance.
If I'd dug into the manuals it would have been clearer I guess. This is from one of them:
Quote
HD audio improves sound quality by expanding and rebuilding frequencies that are lost
with traditional phone calls. There is no additional telephone service requirement to
use HD audio. It is designed to work with standard telephone service. Your system will
automatically enhance all received sound with HD audio.
drgeoff:
Quote from: andyo on May 02, 2018, 12:00:02 am
Yeah, I understand the "weakest link" thing. What I wasn't aware of was that no phones support wideband; I thought some of them supported getting connected to VoIP boxes such as the Obi200 and others and offer wideband support. I guess AT&T is using deceiving marketing here for instance.
If I'd dug into the manuals it would have been clearer I guess. This is from one of them:
Quote
HD audio improves sound quality by expanding and rebuilding frequencies that are lost
with traditional phone calls. There is no additional telephone service requirement to
use HD audio. It is designed to work with standard telephone service. Your system will
automatically enhance all received sound with HD audio.
1. "HD audio" is not synonymous with "wideband audio".
2. "expanding and rebuilding frequencies that are lost" is close to snake oil. Yes there are some audio processing tricks that can make the bandwidth sound wider by using what is received to control the generation of "sympathetic" frequencies outside that band. But there is no magic that can accurately regenerate what has been lost somewhere along the way. Wideband does not do that - the frequencies are not lost.
andyo:
Quote from: drgeoff on May 02, 2018, 01:34:36 am
Quote from: andyo on May 02, 2018, 12:00:02 am
Yeah, I understand the "weakest link" thing. What I wasn't aware of was that no phones support wideband; I thought some of them supported getting connected to VoIP boxes such as the Obi200 and others and offer wideband support. I guess AT&T is using deceiving marketing here for instance.
If I'd dug into the manuals it would have been clearer I guess. This is from one of them:
Quote
HD audio improves sound quality by expanding and rebuilding frequencies that are lost
with traditional phone calls. There is no additional telephone service requirement to
use HD audio. It is designed to work with standard telephone service. Your system will
automatically enhance all received sound with HD audio.
1. "HD audio" is not synonymous with "wideband audio".
2. "expanding and rebuilding frequencies that are lost" is close to snake oil. Yes there are some audio processing tricks that can make the bandwidth sound wider by using what is received to control the generation of "sympathetic" frequencies outside that band. But there is no magic that can accurately regenerate what has been lost somewhere along the way. Wideband does not do that - the frequencies are not lost.
Yes, that's what I meant about AT&T being deceptive. I know "HD Audio" or "HD Voice" is not a technical term, but it's a marketing or colloquial term almost always equated with wideband in the context of audio in calls. In fact outside of this AT&T thing I've never seen it not equated with wideband (of course I can't know every piece of telecommunications marketing out there). BT device manufacturers use it, mobile carriers use it, and even SteveInWa in this forum has used it, from a quick google search.
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