I initially thought of eSound as the end result of full IP network. But I began to gradually feel that eSound would accelerate full IP network itself. In other words, I felt that the concept of users being motivated to shift to a full IP network by using eSound would be more acceptable as an approach to the market. In this case, there is the need to establish a new and different value rather than the simple approach of voice quality of conventional telephones becoming better.

Broadband VoIP will exceed real communication

During broadband VoIP communication, there is a sense of realism that is beyond normal face-to-face communication. Some may say that this is absurd since voice converted to electric signals through a network simply cannot exceed real communication. That was also my initial belief. However, broadband VoIP does exceed real communication made on daily basis.

Picture a scene of real conversation. During a real, daily conversation, there is normally a distance of one meter or more from the other party. Conversations take place in various scenes of our daily consumption activities. When you are buying an expensive consumer product such as a car, communication is usually made on opposite ends of a table. Even when you are buying something inexpensive such as an accessory or a small article, communication takes place on opposite ends of a counter. In other words, the distance from the mouth of the person talking and the ears of the person listening in the real world of communication is normally one meter or more. Although waves emitted from the person talking is transmitted to the recipient through air, the voice is with certainty deteriorated by the time it reaches the ears of the recipient. How about telephones? The distance between the speaker and the microphone is a few centimeters. The distance between the ear of the recipient and the receiver is almost zero since they are in contact with one another. In reality, telephones have the potential of exceeding real communication since the distance between the mouth and ear is extremely short.

Why does voice on the phone sound so distant?

The telephone network has already been completely digitalized and there should be no deterioration in voice quality on the network. Regardless, why does voice on the phone sound so far away when the mouth of the speaker and the ear of the recipient are so close?

The main reason is that not all of the composition making up the human voice is transmitted. To be honest, the technology of the conventional telephone network limits the application to transmitting messages and cuts the composition of human voice by more than a half to realize widespread of telephones. The 3.4kHz bandwidth and 8kHz base sampling were determined as the minimal bandwidths necessary for comprehending messages.