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QoS/VOICEII TM FT MS SE EW QoS 4G WIA MD EW MA 3G WF DJbyClarke RyanClarke Ryan is senior vice president and generalmanager, Voice Enhancement Systems, at NMSCommunications. He has more than 20 years ofexperience in the telecommunications business,specifically with Lucent/AT&T Bell Labs.@clarke_ryan@nmss.comThe Importanceof Voice QualityWhy network coverage isn’t enough to make callers stay and listenAnytime, anywhere calling sounds great, but until voice qualityis improved, and background noise minimized, mobile users willnot want to stay “on the line.”the promise hasseemed simple:mobile phone subscribersshould be able to makeor take calls anytime, anywhere.That’s the promise wireless serviceproviders have been makingfor years. Unfortunately, they’reonly addressing one part of theequation – network coverage.Meanwhile, they’re losingmoney by the minute for callsthat are shortened because ofpoor voice quality or noise commonin mobile users’ environments– when noise drowns out aconversation, they simply end thecall as quickly as possible.Advanced voice enhancementsystems are needed to ensure thatcustomers enjoy a superior qualitycalling experience, every time.Take Maria for example.Maria is a nanny for a large familyin the Austrian Alps. She hasa wireless phone and constantlyhas difficulty making calls.Despite their image as a peacefulsetting, the Alps are pulsingwith noise. The hills, in fact, arealive with the sound of music.Imagine Maria on that hilltoptrying to make a simple call withseven kids dressed in draperybehind her singing, “Doe a deer,a female deer....” It isn’t easy;either she has to scream into herwireless phone or scream at thekids to quiet down (which is acareer-limiting move for Maria).It’s nearly impossible to have anormal mobile phone conversationwhile in a noisy environmentlike hills alive with thesound of music.Or consider the busy salespersontraveling through loud,bustling airports, or a soccermom driving half a dozen kidsin a minivan with a TV, radio,and GameBoy blaring away.They all have a problem likeMaria’s. Wireless coverage doesn’tmean a thing if people can’thear what’s being said, or haveto constantly apologize for thenoise in the background.The carrier communityshould sit up and take notice.Not only are they losing moneywith shortened calls, butthey’re also missing revenueopportunities for calls nevermade or calls that don’t turnout the way they’re supposedto. It’s fairly obvious that callswill be shorter if the callerscan’t hear each other. Andworse, some wireless callswon’t be made at all – calls thatmean added value and revenuefor the carrier, like conferencecalls. After all, if everyone hasto be in a soundproofbooth–type environment to beon a conference call, they’ll bemaking those calls not from theroad but from their desk – evenif that sacrifices convenience.Voice Gaining inImportanceAnother facet driving voicequality’s importance is thegrowing pervasiveness of voicerecognition. The Kelsey Group,a market research firm, has projectedthat worldwide spendingon voice recognition will reach$41 billion by 2005, and U.S.and European spending ontelematics alone will exceed$6.4 billion by 2006. Thesetelematic services can provideMaria, our friend in sales, or thesoccer mom with driving directions,emergency roadsideassistance, personalized news,sports and weather information,as well as access to e-mailand other productivity toolsthrough voice-enabled devicesin their automobiles. But if thevoice recognition system can’tunderstand the users’ commands,users will not get theinformation they need, and willgive up trying. Wireless carriersunable to minimize backgroundnoise will lose theirpiece of that $41-billionBavarian cream pie.In addition, legislaturesaround the world concernedabout the safety issues causedby distracted drivers are requiringwireless devices to havespeech-driven enhanced services.In North America alone, 70%of all wireless phone calls originatefrom automobiles; 39 U.S.states have pending laws limitinghandheld wireless phoneuse in automobiles; England,Italy, Israel, Japan, and 20 othercountries have already outlawedthe same. So people willhave to make and receive callsusing their voice. But unless thewindows are rolled up, andthere’s no traffic, and the radiois off, the chance of the voicerecognition systems understandingwhat they’re askingthe phone to do is minimal.Obviously, government mandatesare making clear calls anecessity.As wireless phones becomea more constant extension ofpeople’s lives, mobile consumerswill be placing morecalls to and from a wider rangeof environments. Whether froma noisy hilltop in the Alps or astreet corner in New York City,consumers are forced to desperatelyscream above thenoise. And with digital networks,the problem is furthercompounded by vocodingcausing users’ voices to “distort”at times – not a bad qualityfor a singing nanny, but notfor the salesperson wanting tomake a good impression.If you want a technicalexpert’s view of voice quality,electrical engineer DavidNahamoo, manager of HumanLanguage Technologies at IBMResearch, says the most pressingproblem in speech recognitionis noise, which can preventa machine from interpretingspeech.Fortunately, carriers are in aposition today to address theissues of mobile voice quality.They can ensure that their networkhas a voice enhancementsystem with the capabilitiesnecessary to compensate forthe noisiest of mobile call settings– moving automobiles,train stations, subways, crowdedrestaurants, or seven charmingchildren demonstratingtheir talent for making music.With the right system in place,they can offer a mobile phoneexperience as if it’s taking placein a soundproof booth, even iftheir subscriber is in the middleof a construction zone.While some products removenoise by decreasing the overallsignal level, this can unfortunatelyalso reduce speech volume.Advanced VoiceEnhancementThe most advanced voiceenhancement systems on themarket today adapt to the specificcall characteristics byadjusting the speech to appropriatelistening levels, and readjustingdynamically throughoutthe call regardless of backgroundnoise. When the jackhammerstarts, the mobile usercontinues to hear normallythroughout the conversationwithout searching for the handsetvolume buttons or sticking afinger in the other ear.The person on the other enddoesn’t hear the jackhammer,and the mobile phone user’svoice is automatically amplifiedto compensate for the backgroundnoise so that not a wordis lost to the listener. And theright voice enhancement systemdoesn’t stop there – it also distinguishesbetween loud signalsand soft signals to keep conversationaltones smooth andspeech easy to hear, resulting inno yelling and no sudden boomsin sound to alarm the user.Perhaps service providershave focused on only one sideof the voice quality equationbecause they didn’t know thereare solutions for not just makingthe call experience a littlebetter, but for completelychanging the user experience.These voice quality enhancementscan help serviceproviders achieve their majorobjectives – decrease churn,increase revenues per user,maximize their network ROI,and compete with landlineproviders to become the primaryphone source for consumers.While many carriershave focused on increasing networkcoverage, they’ve failed tocapitalize on the value of voicequality enhancements. It is significantlyless expensive toimprove a completely coveredarea’s voice quality than tobuild new network coverage.Better Voice QualityMeans IncreasedRevenuesAccording to ForresterResearch, networks with superiorvoice quality have higheraverage call lengths. Customersincrease their talk time becauseof enhanced voice quality andthat clearly equates toincreased revenues. Satisfiedcustomers are also a lot lesslikely to abandon their presentcarrier, particularly as the marketmatures and price meansless than quality. In fact, arecent UK consumer surveyconfirms that most peoplewould in fact switch providersto be assured of consistentlyhaving superior voice quality.AT&T Voice Quality Labs performeda very telling study. Theycompared two systems in a similarenvironment –– one hadvoice quality enhancements,and one did not. Not surprisingly,voice enhancement usersplaced in a typical noisy streetenvironment tended to talk asmuch as 20% longer than whenthe voice enhancement systemwasn’t in operation.Voice quality enhancementsare immediately obvious to consumers,simple to implement,and they maximize the benefitsof network coverage investments.Increasing network coverageis an expensive, time-consumingprocess with a very longtermreturn on investment,whereas adding echo cancellationand voice quality enhancementsare an inexpensive way torealize nearly immediate returns.If the wireless industrywants to solve a problem likeMaria’s, it will need to look tothe latest voice enhancementtechnology to address a few ofthe customers’ favorite things –such as calls that are clear nomatter where users are or whatthey are doing. Stellar voicequality allows service providersto keep their anytime, anywherepromise.28 www.WBT2.com O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2O C T O B E R 2 0 0 2www.WBT2.com WWW.SYS-CON.COM29