Orange Accelerates the Roll-out of Mobile HD
Voice in Europe
BARCELONA/PRNewswire/ --
- Following the World's First Commercial Launch by Orange of a Mobile
High-definition (HD) Voice Service in Moldova in Sept 2009, Orange Will
Also Launch Mobile HD Voice in France, Luxembourg and Spain in Addition
to the UK and Belgium in 2010
- The Service Will Deliver a Significantly Improved Quality of Voice and
Sound That Will Enable Orange to Transform the Mobile Experience for
its Customers
- Three Month Customer Trial to Run from Spring in the UK
Orange is today ramping up its planned roll-out of mobile HD
voice services in Europe with the addition of France, Spain and
Luxembourg to
its 2010 roadmap. Mobile HD voice is the second critical strand in
Orange's
HD voice strategy, building on from the highly successful delivery of HD
voice services for VOIP in 2006. Following technological developments,
Orange
has confirmed that its UK customer trial of mobile HD voice will start
from
Spring and run for three months.
In September 2009, Orange became the world's first operator to
commercially launch a mobile HD voice service in Moldova, announcing
plans to
bring mobile HD voice to the UK and Belgium in 2010. In addition to
mobile HD
voice, Orange was also the first operator to launch HD over VOIP, first
in
France and shortly to be rolled out to Poland and Spain.
Olaf Swantee, senior executive vice president for Orange's
global mobile business, said: "As far as Orange is concerned, voice is
not
just a commodity. With mobile HD voice, we are delivering true customer
innovation - one that will genuinely enrich and transform our customers'
lives. By being the first to innovate and deliver a new mobile voice
experience, we provide a compelling and differentiated proposition which
sets
Orange apart. High-definition voice is the future standard for mobile
communication."
Customers using mobile HD voice services will benefit from the
best possible sound quality, including a much richer and natural sound
that
is capable of conveying emotion significantly better than an ordinary
handset. It helps people hear better in noisy environments, providing
clearer
voice conversations and creating a much closer feeling of proximity
between
both parties, almost as if callers are actually in the same room.
Orange plans to rapidly extend the range of HD
voice-compatible mobile handsets across Europe. Pricing and handsets
will be
announced at the time of launch locally.
HD Voice uses the AMR-WB (Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband) speech
codec. This provides excellent audio quality due to a wider speech
bandwidth
of 50-7000 Hz compared to the current narrowband speech codec of
300-3400 Hz.
The AMR-WB delivers significantly enhanced sound quality whilst
utilising the
same network resources.
Voice services are expected to continue to be the largest
revenue generator worldwide, accounting for 69% revenues on a global
basis
and for no less than 60% in any region in 2014 (Ovum).
For more information: http://www.orange.com,
http://www.francetelecom.com
, http://www.orange-business.com
Source: Orange
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