Voice: The next killer app?
We're just getting used to the fact that our phones are turning into mini-computers able to do everything from scan a barcode to look at the Tower of London and tell us its history - anything it seems, but make a phone call. But here's a question - is the next killer app for mobiles going to be "voice"?
One thing that has hardly improved at all over the 25-year history of the mobile phone is the quality of voice calls. But now there's the possibility that we will soon see a radical improvement, one that make calls sound, in the words of one operator, "as if callers are actually in the same room". The technology that could provide that is called HD Voice.
This will use extra bandwidth on existing 3G networks to improve the quality of calls. In the UK, the Orange network is promising to introduce an HD Voice service later this year and other operators are also carrying out trials.
The problem is that new handsets will be required, so it'll take time for the "network effect" to kick in - both callers will need to be using HD Voice handsets, and both will have to be on networks that are HD-enabled. Of course, given the strains 3G networks are already experiencing as they cope with the flow of data from smartphones and mobile broadband dongles, it'll be interesting to see whether there is room for millions of high-definition voice calls as well.
But one reason I'm excited is the impact that this technology could have on the radio industry. I've written before about the challenge of doing live radio with quality audio. When broadcasting from home I use a 64K ISDN line for live radio rather than my fast broadband connection because it is far more reliable - the bandwidth may be limited but it's mine, all mine.
But if 3G handsets with HD Voice became commonplace - and delivered the promised quality - then radio reporters and interviewees could go live from anywhere with a decent network connection.
The other killer voice app that I'm hearing more about is one that's been around for quite a while. Voice recognition, used to control many aspects of your phone, isn't anything new, but it seems to be making giant leaps forward.
I've been testing both Google's voice search app and something called Vlingo on my phone over the weekend. A year ago, they seemed incapable of understanding a word I said - or indeed anything that was not said in a Californian accent.
But on Saturday I said "Financial Times palliative care" to both apps - and each time they came up with accurate results for this quite complicated search term, and sent me to the article I was seeking out.
I've also tried it as a way of searching out a map location, and that worked well too. Mind you, the Vlingo app, which claims it can also update your Facebook or Twitter status if you speak to it nicely, struggled with longer sentences. There is work to do, as we've seen, in getting a satisfactory result from automated voice recognition services.
What's clear, though, is that voice is about to become an important battleground again in the mobile world, and one where Google is eager to stake a claim. As well as Google Talk, which allows voice and video calls over the internet, since March last year it's been offering US customers Google Voice, giving them one number for all their phones, cheap overseas calls and voicemail on the web.
No word yet on when this service will come to Europe - but the mobile operators may not exactly welcome Google with open arms. After all, would you want a company with huge if hazy mobile ambitions and almost unlimited amounts of cash to come into a market where margins are looking increasingly tight?
I'm 
Comment number 1.
At 25th Jan 2010, Darren wrote:Voice calls on a telephone?
It'll never catch on...
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Comment number 2.
At 25th Jan 2010, RobertT wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 3.
At 25th Jan 2010, Tom Crellin wrote:The quality of mobile phone audio has a lot more to do with the quality of the microphone and speakers than the bandwidth. If you have a hands-free system that uses your car stereo speakers, you will already be aware that it gives a much better sound than the phone itself - even though GSM uses audio compression techniques which limit the quality that is technically possible.
As you note, 64K is plenty of bandwidth for FM radio quality audio (indeed, this is normally split into 2 x 32K channels for stereo). The trick is to get all of these bits transmitted reliably. Like ADSL broadband, the 3G network is designed for "best effort" rather than reliable transmission and so "HD" audio will be just as unreliable as any other audio transmission from the phone.
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Comment number 4.
At 25th Jan 2010, ian mears wrote:I'm not sure 'killer app' is the right term. It's not likely to generate loads more revenue by encouraging people to call more. Mobile's are already at saturation point so not many new customers to get and the majority are generally happy with the quality of the voice calls. So maybe a 'nice to have' option only.
I would guess it would actually cause more problems for the 3g network infrastructure. Voice has more stringent requirements around bandwidth, jitter and latency than data does. So this would mean the network providers having to ring fence more of the precious 3g capacity leaving even less for the already in short supply bandwidth for data. Unless of course they have plans and money to upgrade it all.....
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Comment number 5.
At 25th Jan 2010, Coup Attempt wrote:Goodness. Using a mobile phone to talk to people? How wonderfully 1998. Perhaps if someone where to introduce a small "app" (sic) say called "iVoice" it would take off. And become the most significant breakthrough in telecommunications since people strung two tins together with a piece of string. Of course then we'd need some other "app" (sic) to translate this (is it called "speech?") into text so that we don't exclude people who only ever text.
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Comment number 6.
At 25th Jan 2010, Dr Mark K Smith wrote:What so you can imagine a day when you can get live broadcasts delivered on a telephone from anywhere in the world.
Mmmmmmm I'm sure I've heard about that somewhere. Oh yes it's the same technology used by:
Oxfam to broadcast live from a telephone from Haiti
Save the Children to broadcast live from a telephone from Haiti
The UN Foundation to broadcast live from a telephone from Haiti
The Red Cross to broadcast live from a telephone from Haiti
Action Against hunger to broadcast live from a telephone from Haiti
Improving the quality of the audio is a simple enough task - most handset mics are pretty good it's just network capacity that's poor.
So when the networks are ready the broadcast system is already in place Rory.
Perhaps why we won the award for 'Most Innovative New Technology 2009'.
Trouble is we don't live in America so do keep quiet we don't want everyone to know......
Ironically yours
Mark
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Comment number 7.
At 25th Jan 2010, John Gallagher wrote:It's about time HD Voice got some recognition. It's been around for a very long time and you can try HD voice with some peer-to-peer VoIP smartphone applications such as Nimbuzz, GoogleTalk and Skype. All the network problems such as bandwidth, jitter and latency are solvable and consumers can expect to hear HD voice as carriers migrate to IP networks.
As an FYI - HD voice does not take up much bandwidth. It's efficient using approximately 10 percent of bandwidth. Data and video eat up much more.
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Comment number 8.
At 25th Jan 2010, Dan wrote:Google have been gearing (forgive the pun) up for ages. They've already got an IP voice app and voice search has been up and running for months now. The voice search app on Android is amazingly accurate.
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Comment number 9.
At 26th Jan 2010, Psycho B Delic wrote:I remember how useless voice recognition on PCs used to be util the hardware got to a certain tipping point and it now is amazing. I suspect it will be the same with the phone.
One of the leading companies in the field, Nuance, has released a phone based voice recognition app, which is only availible in the States. If it is half as good as its desktop cousin it would be extremely useful.
One point - the amazing google voice search feature, and I suspect the one Rory uses, are online so the processing power is their end. Given my opening paragaph, my wonder is if the phones have yet reached that 'tipping point' just yet(I do hope they have.
Voice over Phone - as stated by others, novel idea, I doubt it will take off.
:O)x
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Comment number 10.
At 26th Jan 2010, Mike K wrote:To support your aim, and as a follow to the femto cell point, you could support a call on the spectrum modernisation activity (Digital Dividend) to assign some spectrum for a home cell (or multi-vendor femto cell). That would help and make a useful addition to the Digital Britain jigsaw. I used to think I could replace my fixed with a mobile service. It is now apparent I need a decent broadband connection to create a reasonable mobile service.
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Comment number 11.
At 26th Jan 2010, Charlie wrote:@Phil90125...brilliant invention "the iVoice". I can see that being the actual next big surprise from Apple (most of the pundits would probably fall for it as well).
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Comment number 12.
At 3rd Feb 2010, realist wrote:Hmmmm, HDvoice sounds lovely until you realise that it's running over IP, and we all know how rubbish VoIP is once you get out of a private ethernet network and onto the wilds of the interweb! There will need to be some serious QoS work done on & between networks to provide a decent solution. Given that they can't even get 'TDM' mobile voice working properly at 9.6k, I doubt HDvoice has a cat in hell's chance of working properly.
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