The reason for Orange’s enunciation is due to their decision to introduce a new, high quality service named HD Voice in the small Eastern European country.  The switch was thrown at 09:09 on the 09/09/09, represents a world first and according to Orange, the first time since the early 90s that the GSM network has received a major upgrade benefiting voice quality.

HD Voice works by using a special audio coding technology called AMR-WB – which stands for Adaptive Multi Rate-Wideband -  reducing background noise, canceling hiss and giving a more natural sound to telephone conversations, which Orange describe as being close to FM radio quality.

Perhaps the only drawback at this point is the lack of hardware choice, but naturally this will change in the future, as a modified Nokia 6720, named the 6720c, is the only device which currently supports HD Voice.  Moldova’s 14.4Mbps 3G network, which covers 63% of the population, also plays a large part in Orange’s decision to launch the service there first.

Orange are planning to roll out HD Voice in the UK and Belgium next, and have stated that this will be before the end of 2010.  They make the bold assertion that HD Voice enabled handsets will be top sellers within five years too.  To get an idea of the improvements we can expect with HD Voice, take a listen to the demo on Orange’s Moldovan site – it’s impressive stuff!