Deployment
AMR-WB has been standardized by a mobile phone manufacturer consortium for future usage in networks such as UMTS. Its speech quality is high, but older networks will have to be upgraded to support a wide band codec.
In October 2006, first AMR-WB tests were conducted in a deployed network by T-Mobile in Germany, in cooperation with Ericsson.
In 2007 end-to-end AMR-WB TrFO capable 3G & VoIP product line was commercially released by NSN (M13.6 MSS, U3C MGW). AMR-WB TFO support commercially released in 2008 (M14.2, U4.0). End-to-end TFO/TrFO negotiation and mid-call optimization (e.g. on handover, CF or CT events) released in 2009 (M14.3, U4.1).
In late 2009, Orange (UK) announced that it would be introducing AMR-WB on its network in 2010. In France Orange and SFR are using this codec on their 3G+ networks since the end of 2010 summer.
WIND Mobile in Canada launched HD Voice (AMR-WB) on its 3G+ network in February, 2011. WIND Mobile also announced that several handsets will support HD Voice (AMR-WB) in first half of 2011. WIND Mobile press release on HD voice First one being Alcatel Tribe.
Nokia developed VMR-WB codec for CDMA2000 networks, which is fully interoperable with 3GPP AMR-WB.
AMR-WB is also widely adapted format in mobile handsets for tones.
The AMR wideband speech codec shall be supported in 3G multimedia services when wideband speech working at 16 kHz sampling frequency is supported. This requirement is defined in 3GPP technical specifications for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and Transparent end-to-end Packet-switched Streaming Service (PSS). In 3GPP specifications is AMR-WB format also used in 3GP container format.
Read more about this topic: Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband