MTN South Africa has launched high definition (HD) Voice services, making it the first telecom network to deploy the service in the country.

Africa’s largest telecoms company said the use of the HD voice will improve customer experience and the quality of voice calls. The innovative service would also give computer-based processes like voice recognition and speech-to-text the advantage of more accuracy.

MTN SA General Manager, Radio Optimisation & Planning, Krishna Chetty says HD Voice will give subscribers superior audio feedback and make conversations between communicators sound clearer and more natural.

The technology will be available on the telecom’s 3G network nationwide, using the Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) coding standard.

To enjoy the service, MTN SA Chief Technology Officer, Albertyn Eben said both the caller and the receiver must have compatible (3G) mobile devices to enjoy the service on the 3G network. The service is however not compatible on LTE or 2G network.

HD Voice technology was previously reserved for fixed-line networks in the past.