My old mobile nerd buddies PhoneBoy and Andy Abramson both just recently posted about HD Voice on mobile. For their respective pieces go here and here.

To set the stage for you, dear reader, HD Voice is high quality audio on your mobile phone calls. Some handsets and some carriers support HD Voice. This week, AT&T made HD Voice possible to their customer base on eligible handsets, including iPhones along with Wi-Fi calling.

So you know what you’re missing out on if you don’t have HD Voice, check out this demo:

For those of us on Verizon or T-Mobile, we’ve had HD Voice for a few years now. On my LG G4 from T-Mobile, I immediately notice when an HD Voice call engages. You can hear such a higher range of dynamic sounds and you can hear nuances in caller’s voices that you weren’t able to hear.

I’ve had HD calls with others on Verizon who I know were using either an iPhone or more recent Android phone such as the Droid MAXX. I’m engaging in more HD Voice calls because I upgraded my wife to an iPhone 5s and every call with her is so much more clear and crisp.

I share Andy’s sentiment that I can’t wait for conference calling service such as UberConference and Webex to add the HD Voice codec. It’s such a game changer, especially considering it uses our existing hardware.

To quote Andy:

All my calls went through perfectly, but there’s been no one on the other end to talk to who was on HD Voice on AT&T yet where as on T-Mobile almost all my friends on iPhone’s or Samsung Galaxy’s seem to be in HD land already.

I also contacted Verizon and added HD-Voice, which is a free upgrade and their rep claimed that HD Voice is interoperable now between carriers deploying it. That’s something that needs to be proven out. If so, then services like SWITCH and UBERConference, Calliflower, WebEx and GoToMeeting all need to add the same HD-Voice codecs so when people dial in, vs. App In to the calls, they sound pristine.  I just wonder how long it will take for that day to come.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)