VoIP technology may offer enterprises improved flexibility, manageability, and scalability, but voice quality remains a thorn in the side of many IT leaders. Although network issues are often to blame, even under ideal conditions the call clarity delivered in a typical IP telephony environment only matches that found with conventional systems. The simple reason is that the standard “narrowband” VoIP codecs in wide use today – which perform required speech encoding and compression tasks – were designed to do only that. Enterprises looking to raise the quality bar should explore wideband VoIP, which can be leveraged to deliver substantially clearer calls.
What Determines IP Voice Quality?
While IP convergence can offer many benefits, including greater scalability and streamlined administration, converged environments are subject to a wide range of factors that can affect call quality, as discussed in the Info-Tech Advisor research note, “Voice and Video Quality Goes Beyond the Network.” Beyond the elevated performance standards required of the enterprise network, the selection of audio codecs and endpoint devices has great importance when it comes to the overall quality of experience, or subjective quality, perceived by end users.