Orange has introduced a new service called HD Voice for customers with selected Nokia phones, including the Nokia X6, Nokia E5 and Nokia 5230. HD Voice uses a new method of encoding audio for transmission over 3G that allows much higher quality voice reproduction and noise reduction. Read on to find out more...

The science-y bit: when you talk on your mobile the phone compresses your voice using a method (or 'codec') called Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) the resulting voice data is then transmitted over the 3G data link. AMR is pretty good, but Orange HD Voice uses an improved codec called Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) that allows much higher quality speech to be sent over the same 3G bandwidth.

HD Voice requires a handset with specially written firmware that understands the AMR-WB codec. So far, Orange is supporting the Nokia 5230, Nokia X6 and E5 as well as the Samsung Omnia Pro. Sadly, we understand that only new phones will have the correct firmware so if you already have a  5230, X6 or E5 on contract you will have to wait and see if Orange rolls out a firmware update for your phone.

HD Voice will also only work for calls between compatible Orange handsets, at least until other networks decide to implement the AMR-WB standard themselves,

You can find out more about HD Voice on Orange here.