Lod, Israel – March 09, 2006 – AudioCodes (NASDAQ: AUDC), a leading provider of Voice over Packet (VoP) technologies and Voice Network products, today announced the addition of Wideband Vocoding to its VoIPerfect™ DSP software, offering enhanced voice quality for VoIP Media Gateways, IP PBXs, IP phones, Residential Gateways and ATA products.
The integration of Wideband Vocoding into AudioCodes’ VoIPerfect™ DSP software, allows Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) using the AC49x Family of chips and the Tulip AC494 ATA, to provide state of the art products for next-generation telephony systems, focusing on high voice quality utilizing the increased bandwidth.
With the growing penetration of VoIP both in the Enterprise and the Residential markets, OEMs and Carriers are looking for value added features to replace traditional telephony. The addition of Wideband Vocoding, which improves the voice quality and naturalness of speech, has become a key feature in VoIP equipment. The AC49x family of chips, Tulip AC494 ATA and the recently announced MP-202 Analog Gateway provide vendors with a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.
“With the rapid deployment of Voice over IP globally, wideband speech coding with efficient packet loss concealment, jitter management and wideband echo cancellation will become a dominant factor in VoIP services,” said Shaul Weissman, Vice President, VoIP processors at AudioCodes. “Using our renowned VoIPerfect™ DSP software with integrated wideband vocoding, allows vendors to better differentiate themselves in a market that is quickly commoditizing.”
AudioCodes’ AC49x Voice over Packet Processors offer better voice quality than the standard PSTN telephony:
The traditional Public Switch Telephony Network (PSTN) is limited to 300-3400 Hz for narrowband speech. Voice signals are sampled at a rate of 8 kHz, causing limitations to communication quality and comprehension. Wideband telephony refers to transmitting speech signals with bandwidth ranging between 50-7000 Hz, while the voice signals are sampled at a rate of 16 kHz. This effectively doubles the narrowband speech signal bandwidth and offers the caller “true voice” conversation. Compared to narrowband telephony, wideband contributes a sense of presence, enabling a natural and comfortable conversation. Usage of Wideband Vocoding also increases the complexity of other related VoIP algorithms such as Echo Cancellation, Tone detection and generation and more. AudioCodes VoP processors perform all these tasks, together with all other VoIP tasks, such as Jitter buffer, T.38 fax etc., to provide significantly better voice quality than what exists in the marketplace today.
