Enhanced Voice Quality? HD Voice? Maybe w/ LTE now?

[chrisjbritt]

Is there any way to enhance the voice quality on my phone? I have a Blackberry Torch 9810 and have always had a Blackberry in some form... There is something to be said about the old analog technology... Yes, it often had a lot of static if you are in a weak signal area and the battery life was terrible, but the voice and audio clarity sounded very clear - like a landline and there was no 1-3 second delay/lag as the audio is digitized and then re-digitized across the network... Now everything sounds digitally enhanced. Back then cell towers were farther and farther apart because the phones had a lot more transmitting power (wattage)...especially those mounted in your car. Never had one of those funky bag-phone things which looked like a giant "man purse"...

Ever listen to an radio call-in show and you can hardly hear the caller or make out what they are saying? Never the case when the phones were analog before they switched to CDMA/TDMA and then GSM... Wish we had that enhanced voice quality back. Any chance that could be the case with LTE now? I don't know enough about the technology and bandwidth or available channels, but I know that Sirius Satellite does something very unique: For "talk" channels it decrease the quality of the stream because it's talk radio... and for music channels, it increases the quality of the audio and uses the extra bandwidth from the talk channels that are using less so the music sounds better. Since LTE has more bandwidth, is this something AT&T would consider doing? LTE is at least 10x faster than 3G and since unlimited data has been phased-out and the "data hogs" are getting kicked to the curb or at least paying for their crazy usage, wouldn't you think an effort would be made to improve voice clarity? Especially since true 4G LTE is supposed to me 100 megabits a second, though no national carrier is anywhere near this capacity.

I know my desk phone (VoIP Polycom phone) has something called "HD Voice" and the sound is amazing... and I heard a rumor that TMobile North America may be rolling this out and that it may be available with Sprint on their new HTC EVO when they roll out LTE in select markets. It has been out for awhile and called "Widband Audio" I know it's available in Europe via TMobile and by Orange but am wondering what about all of us "across the pond"?

Just wondering...  I would love to have that old voice quality back or for people to actually be heard when they call in to talk shows. I am a regular contributor to a couple of radio shows that call me for comment on various topics and I ALWAYS have to use my office phone or some other landline because they will not put me on via cell - even with 5 bars and perfect reception. Go figure...

Not the right forum or company but I am reminded of the annoying, "Can you hear me now?!? Good." Verizon Wireless guy... Oiy!

Respectfully submitted,

Chris