Neutral Tandem launches HD voice interconnect

Neutral Tandem, Inc., a leading provider of global interconnection services , announces the launch of HD Voice Interconnect. Neutral Tandem’s HD Voice service is a High Definition wideband voice interconnection solution for the competitive carrier market. Neutral Tandem solves the problem of non-interconnected ‘islands of HD’ by providing easy access to other HD carriers interconnected with Neutral Tandem, and adds incremental value to carrier investments in IP networks and Voice over IP (VoIP) services. The service has been successfully interconnected with 8×8 Inc., a provider of innovative communications and computing solutions, who announced its own ability to deliver HD Calling to business phone service subscribers in January 2010.

The service is aimed at providing carriers and service providers, poised to launch wideband calling services, the opportunity to efficiently route HD Voice calls between competitive carriers and hosted Voice Application Providers. HD Voice provides increased call clarity, meaning that conference call users can better understand other speakers and enhanced applications like IVR, speech recognition and transcription systems work with greater accuracy. The service requires a SIP interconnect that routes HD Voice across Neutral Tandem’s network that is capable of terminating calls to over 550M telephony end points, and offers completion for any call regardless of whether the terminating party can terminate wideband voice.

"As a proven leader in offering HD interconnection solutions for service providers, Neutral Tandem’s solution makes it easy for us to provide the enhanced audio fidelity required by our subscribers and completes the calls across its all-IP network," comments Bryan Martin, Chairman and CEO of 8×8. "They simplify the delivery of high-quality voice solutions end-to-end, and with their ‘off-net’ routing capabilities, there’s no need to create multiple HD peering relationships or routing configurations with numerous carriers, they do it all."

Neutral Tandem’s HD Voice service is readily accessible to any carrier with HD Voice traffic. It is unique in that it provides a bridge to connect between carriers and across markets. Furthermore, the solution does not require an ENUM registry, where numbers have to be uploaded by each carrier and ‘dipped’ at call set up. Due to the private nature of the service, customers simply route calls to Neutral Tandem and if the terminating carrier supports HD Voice, it is completed as such; otherwise, the call is completed on Neutral Tandem’s extensive global voice network.

"We are excited to provide a comprehensive HD Voice solution to support carriers deploying wideband voice technology," comments Surendra Saboo, COO of Neutral Tandem. "We have designed our solution to be straightforward, without requiring complex routing tables or special number provisioning. We look forward to speaking with other carriers and service providers who are planning wideband voice deployments regarding testing and interconnecting to our HD voice service, to maximize the value for their customers".

Neutral Tandem’s HD Voice solution is designed to provide the carrier market a broad High Definition footprint to terminate quality voice traffic to mobile and wireline carriers. The service offers improved quality and low latency voice termination across its entire private SIP-based network. HD Voice is a seamless service to Neutral Tandem’s existing voice termination platform that manages over 11 billion minutes a month. To learn more about Neutral Tandem’s products and services designed to help competitive carriers interconnect their networks, contact HDVoice@NeutralTandem.com or visit www.neutraltandem.com.