If you’re an iPhone 5 user, your call quality with AT&T should improve this year.
Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog and AllThingsD, when Apple introduced the iPhone 5 last year, Apple’s Senior VP of Marketing Phil Schiller explained that Apple updated the iPhone 5’s entire audio system. In addition to the inclusion of three microphones and an improved speaker design, Schiller also boasted that the iPhone 5 featured a technology dubbed wideband audio, otherwise known as HD Voice technology.
Phil Schiller said the technology was capable of delivering amazing sound performance and described it thusly:
In a typical cellphone call, this is what it looks like. The frequency of the data in your voice is compressed around the midrange to help make that call sound more intelligible, but it doesn’t sound entirely natural all the time. So with wideband audio we can fill up more of the frequency spectrum and make your voice sound even more natural.
In order to take advantage of the much improved call quality, however, the technology must be supported by the carrier and both devices on a particular call.
When Apple first introduced the iPhone 5, Schiller said that 20 cellphone carriers worldwide would be ready to support the iPhone 5’s wideband audio technology at launch. Notably, no US carriers were part of that original grouping of 20.
But that’s all poised to change.
According to statements made by AT&T senior VP Kris Rinne on Tuesday at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit indicating that Ma Bell is planning to roll out support for wideband audio later this year.
“HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy,” Rinne explained.
Of course, this is welcome news for AT&T subscribers who have long complained of subpar call quality measured against other US carriers like Sprint and Verizon.
Rinne also added that AT&T is taking other measures to improve call quality on its network.
Rinne, who oversees network technologies for the carrier, said that the carrier will also begin work on so-called advanced LTE which does things to reduce interference and bond together traffic from various frequencies.
Sprint is reportedly interested in supporting HD Voice as well, though a timetable for such support wasn’t specified.
So, if you ever felt your iPhone 5’s call quality was just slightly short of stellar, this should help. Verizon users, on the other hand, will have to wait until 2014 for HD Voice support.