Ditech To Improve Bluetooth Voice Quality

Until I heard how good my Nokia BH-604 stereo bluetooth headset sounded, I didn’t think anything resembling good sound was possible on Bluetooth. Most bluetooth headsets I’ve used, however, suck. Not only for me, but for the person on the other end. I have a hard enough time understanding my children when I talk to them over a mobile phone. Add a bluetooth headset to the equation, and you might as well be speaking underwater.

Needless to say, when I found out that Ditech Networks is going to license their voice quality algorithms for use with Bluetooth headsets, I was excited. Maybe someday, a normal bluetooth headset won’t sound like crap. Maybe.

The one question I have with this is whether or not these technologies have to be employed on both the handset and the headset in order to get any results. What are the licensing terms? Will it be cheap enough that mobile phone manufacturers sign up? Questions, questions.

Edit: I got some answers from Ditech’s PR firm: it will likely only add about 30-50 cents to the cost of a bluetooth headset and it doesn’t need to be implemented in the handset, but it can also be implemented there as well.