said by DataRiker:said by elray:Maybe i misinterpreted the specifications over the years - I'm not an EE,. But doesn't Skype, Sipdroid, G.729 et al, take at least 30kbps, while traditional cellphone vocoders use 8-13kbps?
That wouldn't surprise me.
I much prefer VOIP because the sound quality is so much better. Carriers cramming voice over 8kbps makes total sense.
I avoid cellphone usage for most calls, whenever possible, since most of my contacts speak English as a 3rd language, and poorly - makes anything beyond rudimentary chat improbable.
If you stick with an older CDMA phone, you can still force 13k vocoding, which improves things a bit, at least on VZW network.
I'd welcome an "HD Voice" option for regular cellphone service - if a 16K codec does the trick, I'd pay extra for HD premium minutes. I'm sure existing protocols could handle it, but I suspect Cellco found the billing and PR issues difficult.