VoIP Providers start with HD Voice Peering Federation

XConnect, the leader in next-generation interconnection and carrier ENUM-registry services, announced today that a strong representation of the U.S. VoIP service providers offering high-definition (HD) voice service are participating in a trial of the world’s first IP-peering federation created for exchanging HD voice traffic.
Alteva, Broadvox, Ooma, Phone.com, SimpleSignal, Stage 2 Networks, Telesphere, TurboBridge and ZipDX are taking part in XConnect’s trial, launched April 1.
The trial is designed for the exchange of high-definition calls between networks using XConnect’s secure and scalable carrier ENUM-based interconnection services.
Fixed, mobile and Web 2.0 service providers increasingly are adopting HD voice because it enables superior-quality voice communications compared with those supported by the legacy PSTN.
HD voice reproduces human speech with substantially greater clarity, depth and nuance, using codecs that capture more than double the frequency range of traditional circuit-switched calls while generally requiring less bandwidth.
The rich, natural-sounding quality of HD voice calls often is likened to that of face-to-face conversations.
However, most HD voice service today is available only within a given operator’s network.
Global utilisation of HD voice will require cross-network calling, with the entire call path and all endpoints supporting the rich features.
XConnect established the HD federation to meet this need.
“We are pleased to offer HD voice operators a simple and secure way to take advantage of the great potential the advanced service offers,” said XConnect CEO Eli Katz.
“The XConnect federation-based, all-IP Interconnect 2.0 platform is ideally suited for providing a scalable method for interconnection of HD and multimedia services on a cross-network basis.
“This will drive mass-market adoption and deliver increased usage, revenue and margin while reducing churn.”
Phone.com CEO Ari Rabban said: “We recognise the value of HD voice as a competitive edge for our services.
“For HD voice really to achieve its potential, it has to be available between networks, and the XConnect trial is ideally suited to help us and other service providers address that challenge.”
Operators joining the trial will participate in a peering community, called the HD Alliance, within XConnect’s Global Alliance, which combines carrier ENUM-registry and multimedia IP interconnection hub services.
The Global Alliance enables members to deliver advanced IP services across networks, as well as decrease costs and increase service quality.
Besides reducing termination costs, service providers are spared the considerable time and resource allocations of establishing and maintaining separate interconnection agreements with each of numerous providers.
End-to-end IP interconnection also allows for higher call quality than the PSTN can support, as well as multimedia features.