Mobile report slams voice quality
Buyers beware - price counts for nothing when
it comes to call standards
08 January 2004
The most expensive mobile phones in the UK offer
no better voice quality than the cheapest.
This is according to measurement company Psytechnics,
which tested the ten most popular handsets in the UK and calculated
a mean opinion score (MOS) out of five for each. The MOS is an
indication of call clarity and is based on user perception - the
higher the score, the better the voice quality rating.
Psytechnics discovered that the voice quality of
the most expensive handset, the £400 Nokia 6600, and the
cheapest, the £50 Mitsubishi Trium 110, was almost equal.
The Nokia gained a score of 2.75 and the Mitsubishi scored 3.05.
This is equivalent to ‘poor to fair’ on the MOS scale.
John Winchester, Psytechnics’ CEO, said “Mobile
phones are packing more features, but are still lagging behind
last century’s analogue phones in terms of voice quality.
This report shows that consumers cannot even pay more for better
quality, which indicates it’s not on the agenda of the handset
manufacturers.”
“For business users who put voice quality
ahead of all other features this is disappointing news,”
Winchester added. “However our report will help all consumers
make a more enlightened choice by understanding that increased
cost is solely for style and gadgets.”
Consumers can log on to Psytechnics
and compare the cost and voice quality performance of the remaining
phones in the tests and also download a voice quality report which
rates the UK mobile networks.
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