There's no need to raise your voice when talking on your mobile phone, spell out everything using "alpha, bravo, charlie..." when calling the bank, worry about someone else overhearing your conversation on the phone. You can now use your soft, romantic voice when talking over the phone.

Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications company, now offers the possibility to make and receive phone calls with superior sound quality with High Definition Voice.

HD Voice provides clearer, crisper calls for our customers, as well as suppressing background noise such as traffic or crowds. "So you could be calling a friend in Perth from a train in Melbourne and feel like you're talking face-to-face," Telstra said. It adds HD Voice makes sounds sharper, and also means it's easier for customers to distinguish between similar sounds like 'S' and 'F'.

Mike Wright, director of Networks and Access Technologies, said, "Telstra has launched many firsts on the Australian market, including HSPA+ and we are the first Australian operator to commence deployment of LTE, the 4th generation of mobile communications technology." Telstra is not only bringing Australia's first HD Voice network, but now claims to be the largest HD Voice network in the world.

HD Voice uses technology known as Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate coding (WB-AMR) which is a wider audio frequency band than the existing network. Mobile HD voice delivers significantly higher voice quality for calls between mobile phones that support the feature, while it can also be implemented in GSM and WCDMA networks.

Telstra said that customers with HD-compatible handsets will be able to make HD Voice calls for no extra cost as long as the receiver is also using a compatible handset on the Next G network.

More than 30 HD Voice-capable phones are available from manufacturers such as HTC, LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung.

As for Telstra's offerings, only five models so far have HD Voice capability -- the Nokia 6720, E52, E72 and N8-00 and the HTC Desire S. Next month, the Sony Ericsson Neo-Xperia will be launched with HD Voice.

"As it's a new service, there are currently limited HD-compatible devices available in Australia. However as the demand increases for HD Voice, the number of compatible devices is sure to grow and we expect a large percentage of new devices to support this feature in the coming year," Telstra said.

Ericsson will provide a software upgrade Telstra's existing core and WCDMA network for the HD Voice.

Johan Wibergh, head of Ericsson's Business Unit Networks, says: "We believe HD voice is an innovation for voice services similar to the shift from standard TV to HDTV. The marked difference in quality is a leap in voice services, and we're delighted that the strong partnership between Ericsson and Telstra has made it possible to create the largest HD voice network in the world."

In addition, the integration of Mobile SoftSwitch Solution (MSS) and WCDMA software was done without interruption to current services. "Many recently released handset models have HD voice capabilities built in, such as recent models from the Sony Ericsson Xperia family," said Wibergh.