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Comcast CTO Tony Werner talked about "when" we do HD, not "if," startling a room of industry execs who didn't think HD Voice was on carrier roadmaps. This could be a killer app against telcos: much better phone calls. Werner  confirmed to me it wasn't just a slip of the tongue, but it also was not an announcement of an imminent service. At least one cableco intends trial this year, however.

    Comcast is large enough to overcome the HD Voice chicken or egg problem. HD Voice is worthless unless both ends have upgraded gear with better mics and speakers. France Telecom is solving that problem by giving HD gear to everyone, starting before they offer the service. It's only a couple of bucks more at most. When they've distributed enough handsets, they start the commercial service.

    Everyone who has heard a demonstration of HD Voice is inspired. Sound is remarkably better than the usual phone company quality. Using twice the bandwidth works well and is cheap. It would be a natural "killer app" for telco competitors but adoption just hasn't happened. Any current DOCSIS or 3G/4G wireless network has the bandwidth to support HD Voice (32K-128K, not megabits) and it's part of current DOCSIS specifications.

     Broadcom told me that their chips "have had the capability to do HD Voice for several years but none of the carriers had rolled out the service." Both #2 Time Warner and #3 Cox have separately told me they're interested, but neither revealed any deployment plans. At one of the largest cablecos, their internal network is ready to turn on HD as soon as the business side gives the OK.

     CableLabs is making sure the equipment is ready and adopting DECT Cordless Advanced Technology—internet and quality (CAT‑iq). Early in December, 11 vendors came to Boulder Colorado for interoperability testing. They brought wideband gear, typically with twice the bandwidth of ordinary voice phones. Jean-François Mulé set a goal. "All HD Voice capable DECT handsets certified worldwide will operate with cable gateways"

    Many thanks for Dana Blankenhorn for asking the right question and Dan Berninger for years of education about HD Voice.

Here's the CableLabs release. Note the enthusiasm of Jeff Lewis of Comcast.

Eleven Suppliers Take Part in CableLabs® Interop on HD Voice

Louisville, Colorado, December 28, 2010—Eleven industry suppliers took part in a recent interoperability testing event at CableLabs® that focused on progress being made around wideband High-Definition Voice (HD Voice). CableLabs also announced it has signed a collaboration agreement with the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT™) Forum.

CableLabs has adopted the DECT Cordless Advanced Technology—internet and quality (CAT‑iq™) specifications as part of its PacketCable™ HD Voice initiative. "This collaboration agreement enables cable operators, CableLabs and the DECT Forum to work together to ensure that all HD Voice capable DECT handsets certified worldwide will operate with cable gateways," said Jean-François Mulé, Vice President, IP Technologies and Services at CableLabs.

"Our working together will help drive the adoption of DECT HD Voice worldwide leveraging CableLabs' premier R&D lab facility known for fostering multi-vendor interoperability," said Mike Rude, chairman of the DECT Forum US Working Group. During the interop event held December 6–10 at CableLabs, the companies exhibited a high level of interoperability between handsets and base stations. A number of wideband high definition voice calls were successfully made using different components from various suppliers. HD voice technology doubles the transmitted bandwidth of one's voice by capturing twice the speech information of a standard phone call.

The interop specifically addressed DECT CAT-iq 2.0 technology. This is a technology designed to enhance quality of digital voice increasing engagement for both consumer and business voice. Participating suppliers were Binatone, BroadSoft, CCT, DSP Group, Lantiq, Panasonic, RTX, Samsung, SMC Networks, Technicolor and VTech.

"This interop was great to observe because it was one of the best attended interops held for DECT HD Voice, and it showed tremendous gains being made with this technology," said Jeff Lewis, Senior Director, Technology Product Development, Broadband Devices, Comcast. "The vendors demonstrated product interoperability between DECT chipsets, base stations, handsets and SIP-based applications of different suppliers including PacketCable™ MTA devices for European and American frequency plans. This level of interoperability is one of the keys to unlock HD Voice delivery. It opens the way for retail availability of new and innovative handsets for HD voice and SMS texting that work on cable right out of the box."

Suppliers have implemented a number of CAT-iq features that are important to cable, said Daniel Rice, Vice President, Access Network Technology at CableLabs. "This event represents a significant milestone in proving the technology choices for enabling HD Voice for consumers in North America. We successfully tested registration, paging, Caller ID display, Call Waiting notifications, barge-in, CODEC negotiation and multi-line applications in numerous vendor combinations, among other items," Rice added.

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.org, www.ebif.tv and www.tru2way.com.

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