According to Doug Mohney of FierceVoIP, Skype will announce today (no press release on Skype.com at 2:33 pm EST (GMT-5)) a royalty-free access to the SILK wideband codec used by Skype, with the goal of 'unlocking one of the major obstacles in the migration from narrowband, ' per Skype GM Jonathan Christensen.
The software to be published is an Internet-specific speech codec available in C (so it can be easily compiled for any OS) and is able to sample at 24 kHz, work at variable bit rates from 6-40kbps with very low CPU utilization, low memory consumption with low delay, jitter and packet loss.
No doubt Skype sees that wideband is another nail in the coffin for toll-quality digital networks, since they can only sample at 8 kHz. The old value proposition of VoIP was save $ (avoid taxes). Now the new mantra has to be – Better Quality, Save $ (avoid taxes).
Key questions: what does this mean for IP phone manufacturer, Polycom, who has also offered its wideband codec, SirenTM 22? What does this mean for the ITU-T's new G.719 codec specification based on Siren 22?