The future of VoIP may be high-definition

High-definition (HD) Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) could represent the future of the industry, a leading expert claims.

Jeff Pulver is launching the HD Communications Summit on May 21st in New York City to evaluate the next level of quality voice communications.

Speaking to Telephony Online, he explained that HD VoIP utilises voice energy outside the three kilohertz frequency of traditional telephone calls.

This can create a much higher quality of service but also has the potential to usher in additional revenues for providers from new services and applications.

Mr Pulver explained that this could do the same thing for VoIP as Apple's iPhone did for mobile devices in that it told "everyone that you can teach an old dog new tricks".

"You can go into a very mature marketplace and disrupt it. By empowering a core of worldwide developers that write software," he added.

"What I am envisioning is re-invigorating communications by letting each service provider have their own app store, as defined by their service platform, on an end-to-end IP communications network."

Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at IT analysis firm Quocirca, recently told Computing.co.uk that the government's universal broadband pledge will not be enough to help certain companies roll-out VoIP and other rich media services in the future.