More About Compression & Sound Quality

If you've ever placed or received VoIP calls before, you've probably heard the effects of tight compression. Voices sound robotic or metallic, background noise is magnified, echoes abound, time delays interrupt conversation...

Most VoIP and cell phone companies compress audio data up to 10 times smaller than the original data to reduce bandwidth and "squeeze" as many calls as possible into limited lines. With just 25% of the same data lost, you have a poor imitation. But using compression by most companies' standards, 90% (!) of the original sound data is lost*. Even those not familiar with the properties of sound can easily see (and hear) the fact that sound quality is substantially degraded by tight compression.

But not so with Douglas Telecom. We always maintain the highest sound transmission quality possible (99.9% reliability - data packet loss is only an issue at 95% or less). While competitors use tight compression, we utilize 8000Hz at an 8-bit PCM standard, non-compressed, so calls always have more than enough room to be heard exactly as they are spoken, and faxes are transmitted even better than with standard land lines. In other words, we get crystal-clear audio and pass it along to you every step of the way.

Concerned about data storage? We also have a fiberoptic connection to the internet with an aggregate capacity of 100MB, which we can upgrade to 1GB (1000MB) within 24 hours if needed. It is virtually impossible for our server to become overloaded! Count on us to provide consistent service.

*As a side note, the technologically astute may wonder why mp3s can still produce good sound quality despite high compression rates. The answer is found at the very beginning with the original data. When sound tracks are compressed ten times from 44,000 or even 22,000Hz with 16-bit, 2-channel PCM, quality digital sound is still possible.  But with voice data that flows over the internet or cell channels, the original sound begins at 8,000Hz, so x10 compression reduces quality substantially.