TMC contributor David Sims recently asked if people are actually using HD voice on calls. I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some of the biggest service providers and users in the U.S.

The biggest business HD voice service provider by a large margin is 8x8. In January, the company cited numbers of around 70,000 end-points via their hosted solution and Aastra Hi-Q enabled phones. You can expect that number to steadily grow throughout 2010 given that 8x8's service is now on GSA schedule and being steadily bought by Federal agencies who just don't want to run their own PBX.
 
 Ooma gets second place in the HD voice service provider arena, with around 25,000 handsets shipped in the last quarter of 2009. The company is a consumer-targeted service and the second-generation Telo hardware supports G.722 and has a lot of other interesting high-tech whistles under the hood.
 
Given anticipated 2010 growth rates at both 8x8 and Ooma, both organizations will likely have hundreds of thousands of G.722 endpoints by the end of the year.
 
Moving into enterprise users, it should be no surprise that phone companies are starting to drink their own champagne with in-house deployment and use of HD voice.  Global Crossing has around 5,600 HD voice endpoints installed, using a mix of handsets and soft clients.  (Yes, the company has its HQ in Bermuda, but it has a huge footprint in the U.S. ) More importantly, Global Crossing is operating an HD voice conference bridge for its largest Fortune 500 customer and plans to offer an automated HD voice conference bridge service in the future.
 
Verizon, yes, the "Can you hear me now?" company, has installed nearly 5,000 Polycom phones at its corporate headquarters in Basking Ridge, New Jersey - including one on the CEO's desk.  Basking Ridge, a former AT&T site, was already using hosted VoIP, so the migration from vanilla VoIP to HD was a relatively straightforward and painless process. Other internal deployments will be made on an opportunistic basis as equipment reaches end-of-life. 
 
In addition, Verizon Business said it expects some "early adopter" customers out of its corporate base for HD voice this year with general availability of HD voice service coming in 2010. If you're going to VoiceCon, you might want to ask a Verizon representative about the latest news on its HD plans and when you might get some.
 
Finally, there are a number of universities that have conducted HD voice deployments. I've heard Penn State has rolled out around 4,500 Cisco phones running G.722 at its main campus.  Certainly, there are others in the higher education world that have installed on HD and simply take it for granted.

Doug Mohney is a contributing editor for TMCnet and a 20-year veteran of the ICT space. To read more of his articles, please visit columnist page.

Edited by Amy Tierney