Very basic questions about audio quality on domestic VOIP

Hi,

I'm new to the forums and am trying to get some help for my hard-of-hearing father.

He struggles with auditory processing disorder (APD) meaning that he has difficulty identifying words in speech if there's a lot of noise in the signal. By contrast, conventional hearing loss is primarily an amplitude issue - hearing aids just make everything louder.

For this reason he finds following conversation on a Skype-to-Skype call or Facebook Messenger call much easier to follow than a landline phonecall, as the audio quality is much better. He is hoping that replacing his domestic landline with a VOIP service would provide the same benefit. His domestic broadband is currently provided by Virgin Media (I know about the issues with SIP ALG)

Would a VoIP service such as Sipgate provide a better audio quality?

Would it only apply to VOIP-to-VOIP calls, or would VOIP-to-Landline and VOIP-to-mobile calls also be of improved quality?

Do VOIP providers vary in the bitrate of their services?

Any help with this would be much appreciated! I've tried googling this, but haven't managed to find concrete information.

Unfortunately although the quality of VoIP services is fine and comparable with landlines, it still is not as good as the best quality you can get with a proprietary system like FaceTime or Skype for example

This is because most public VoIP providers by and large default to the “standard definition” audio codecs G.711 u-law and a-law and G.729 (and possibly a few others) that have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth See for example the supported list of codecs from Sipgate here

To get a truly appreciable difference in audio finesse you need to have an end to end connection where both parties support the same “high definition” (HD) codecs. By virtue of the fact that it is much harder to get standardisation here, and various historical and ££ royalty driven reasons - you will only find that true high definition quality calls are really only possible on platforms where the parties are effectively using the same software or tech. A good example being Apple FaceTime calls which can be excellent quality.

On mobile to mobile network calls where both parties are connected using capable handsets that support VoLTE (voice over 4G) it’s possible to also get HD quality calls too. But it’s not always guaranteed and especially so if the call is mobile only on one leg - the lowest common denominator prevails.

Back to VoIP and the standard call audio quality will be fine but it generally won’t be HD. You can always sign up to Sipgate Basic for free to see how it compares.

Thank you for your help!

Hi,

As one who has struggled with identifying words in noisy environments for many years, I fully sympathise with your father's situation; it is VERY frustrating for all involved. Volume is not the problem for me, it is the clarity that I need.

However, I'm surprised at your comment "hearing aids just make things louder". In my experience, many modern hearing aids are very good at making words very much clearer in even quite challenging environments. I was able to go down the private route and the aids that I now have are life-changingly good: I would really struggle to manage without them. They are however very expensive and are obviously not an option for everyone.

That said, a number of people swear by aids available from the NHS. Getting an NHS hearing test via your father's GP may be an option worth exploring, as it would allow him to assess what is available from that route.

Very best wishes

Mike

Sorry, that was just a simplification to convey the nature of APD. Can I ask what model of hearing aid you have? He has tried various models of hearing aid but has never been particularly satisfied with them so far.

In a related question, do you use bluetooth with your hearing aids for telephone calls? I have a hypothesis that part of the reason why he can understand conversations better on Skype/Messenger calls is that he’s using (stereo) earbuds on his desktop pc as opposed to a mono telephone handset. The binaural audio of a headset or BT hearing aids might make it easier to comprehend speech if coming from 2 ears rather than one

The aids I have are Phonak Audeo via Boots Hearing Care; I believe Specsavers also offer them, possibly at a better price ... The range of adjustments they offer via the android (and iPhone) app is substantial.

Bluetooth - yes; you're probably right about the improvement due to the stereo effect. We are set up with Vonage voip and any incoming 'landline' calls are diverted to my android mobile if not otherwise picked up after a few (adjustable) seconds.

Is your father using Skype/ Messenger (Facebook?) for video rather than voice calls? I'm not familiar with the latter but we use the former for daily chats with our daughter's family, and the visual cues in face to face contact also greatly help with intelligability.

Hope that is of some help.

Mike

VOIP to VOIP calls can be better as they can use a HD codec end to end.
VOIP to Landline/mobiles calls will always be limited by the worst codec in the chain which is usually the last part of the journey closer to the non VOIP end.
Unfortunately there is no way around this.

Thanks
Dan

As long as you can guarantee that both VoIP endpoints have got the same priority order of codecs and they both then connect using the same HD codec. Unfortunately not always the case, unless you can have control or influence of the config of both endpoints. It’s a bit hit and miss in practice.

This is where the proprietary platforms like Skype, FaceTime etc win because they can extert that level control over the end to end connection, hence more of less guaranteed that the best most compatible HD codecs will be used.