HD Voice: Problems in Paradise

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High-definition (HD) voice delivers a richer, better calling experience than the old analog public switched telephone network and cellular technology. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all introduced HD voice on their cellular networks, while most cloud business services offer HD voice as a standard feature. However, there are plenty of ways where HD voice can “break” and calls fall back to narrowband quality.

Network and both phones used in an HD voice call need to support the same standards. The simplest example is in the cellular world. If an AT&T customer makes an HD voice call to another AT&T customer, the other party has to have a handset that supports HD voice. Otherwise, the call will use older, narrowband technology.

All cellular carriers supporting HD voice provide a list of compatible devices, including a number of Android devices and the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are currently the only devices known to support HD voice on all four cellular carriers, so if you have an iPhone 6 and call another iPhone 6 user on the same network, you have good odds of completing an HD voice call—but that’s not guaranteed. If you or the other caller are in a network area that doesn’t support HD voice calling, you’ll simply get a regular call.

Making an HD voice call between two wireless carriers adds layers of complexity. AT&T and Verizon announced this fall that they are working to exchange voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) calls across their networks and expect to announce interoperability sometime in 2015. T-Mobile also supports VoLTE calling, so it isn’t unreasonable to expect announcements between it, AT&T, and Verizon for cross-network VoLTE calling. Sprint is the odd man out for cross-network HD voice calls in the short term, because it currently supports HD voice on its 3G CDMA network—a technology not directly compatible with VoLTE—and isn’t expected to start deploying VoLTE until sometime in 2015.

Over the next two years, your odds of making an HD voice call on a cellular network will significantly increase. All service providers will offer VoLTE and implement interoperability agreements for cross-network HD voice calls. New handsets will support HD voice out of the box, and every upgrade to a new handset will create another HD voice–enabled customer.