[Fictia]

Hi,

I'm looking for a solution that will maximize my available bandwidth to provide high quality sound on VoIP conversations, similar to what I'm getting with Skype. Currently I own three Sipura 3000 boxes, and after playing with them and enjoying them for awhile I decided it's time to move to something more advanced (in sound quality). POTS-quality is just not good enough.

The variables:
1. All parties are on 802.11g networks.
2. All parties have modern PCs (XP/512+MB/2+GHz).
3. All parties have min 256Kbps upstream and much more downstream.
4. They will only speak among themselves (no need to worry about SIP minute providers -- in my experience calling cards are just as cheap).

I don't care for codec/software standards. I just need a solution for the next 2 years then go with something else. If it's standards-based - cool. But I'm not willing to sacrifice features/audio quality for the sake of standard-compliance. To my ears, Skype conversations are "CD quality", which I define as feeling as if the person is right next to me. Much better than POTS.

Is there a cordless/wireless solution (bluetooth 2.0, wifi) that'll produce similar audio quality to Skype? Note I'm not only talking about only the codecs used but mainly on the speaker/mic quality to allow the enjoyment of higher bandwidth codecs. ATA's are obviously out the question.

Further, I suspect that earphone/mic combos that plug into the standard 2.5mm jack on cordless phones and cellphones are unable physically to produce high quality sound. Correct me if I'm wrong. So maybe the solution will have the standard two separate 3.5mm jacks for headphone and mic. Or perhaps it would use a converter like this if it enhances the sound (using good, separate headset & mic). Would that converter, with this phone, do the trick?

Thank you for any suggestions!

[rizsher]

Are you planning to play Audio CDs to each other over the phone or what?. ATA's generally provider the best sound quality cos you can attach as high end a POTS phone as you want. All ATAs support g711, which is probably the highest bandwidth codec out there, so I don't really understand what you mean when you say "ATAs are certainly out of the way".

The sound quality on a VoIP conversation is not so much a factor of the hardware involved, but the ITSP, the network, the routes used by the particular VoIP conversation etc etc.