Europe
: Ericsson and T-Mobile International have successfully trialed AMR
Wideband among consumers in Germany, proving the potential of this
technology thanks to a significant improvement in voice quality and
the consequent end-user satisfaction.
This was the first AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate) Wideband trial in a commercial
network and consumer response was researched by the Ericsson Consumer
& Enterprise Lab together with the German market research company
GfK.
The report shows clearly the positive reaction of the consumers, with
more than 70 percent of the participants experiencing significant
improvement in the voice quality.
Ericsson Consumer & Enterprise Lab studies show that higher call
quality improves subscriber satisfaction and can contribute significantly
to increased MoU (Minutes of Use) in mobile networks.
Klaus-Juergen Krath, Vice President RAN Engineering, T-Mobile International,
says: "TMO is absolutely committed to constantly improving the
user experience for our customers and AMR Wideband offers a voice
quality as yet unknown in telephony. The early customer trial delivers
valuable feedback, which can be used in a future implementation phase."
Fredrik Alatalo, Vice President Mobile Core, Ericsson, says: "Consumer
understanding is key for the development of successful products. We
are happy to support our customers with state-of-the-art technology
trials and at the same time, provide them with valuable information
about consumer behavior."
Ericsson AMR Wideband is a new GSM/WCDMA standardized speech codec
designed to enhance voice quality and clarity in mobile networks to
noticeably higher levels than today's ISDN fixed telephony, even in
whispered conversations or environments with high background noise.
AMR-Wideband also enables improved operator services, such as enhanced
personalized ringback tones and multi-party conferences.
AMR-Wideband is the latest speech-compression standard algorithm and
offers substantially better voice quality because of doubled voice
bandwidth without extra radio and transmission requirements.
