Nokia announced that it has achieved the world's first immersive voice calling, enhancing the calling experience through 3D spatial audio.
Audio during calls has seen some changes since the 1990s, especially with the arrival of high-resolution audio on the 3G network or the arrival of VoLTE on the 4G network. Nokia has just announced a brand new development.
Immersive 3D sound
The Finnish equipment manufacturer has made the world's first immersive voice call over a cellular network. This test was conducted live between Pekka Lundmark, President of Nokia, and Stefan Lindström, Finnish Ambassador for Digitization and New Technologies.
In its call, Nokia used the brand new IVAS voice codec for immersive voice and audio services which is part of the upcoming 5G advanced standard. This 3GPP codec allows users to hear spatial audio in real-time instead of the audio experience they know today, significantly improving audio and video call listening.
The IVAS codec can be used on all connected devices, be it a tablet, smartphone or even a PC. Thus, 3D quality calls can be made between different devices and different platforms that exist today. For example, you can connect from software on your Android phone to the same software on your Windows PC, while enjoying immersive sound.
The standard was developed by a consortium of 13 companies, and Nokia has been a leader in these standardization efforts, bringing much of the technology to the standard and enabling the development of a specific format for smartphones.
Note that the IVAS codec supports surround and binaural audio but also supports 5.1, 5.1.2, 7.1…
The immersive live voice and audio experience enabled by IVAS enhances the richness and quality of the call, and the 3D audio experience makes the interaction more realistic and engaging, providing a wealth of new benefits for personal and professional communication. Immersive communications technology will also take XR and metaverse interactivity to the next level
Stefan Lindström, Finnish Ambassador for Digitization and New Technologies
