Daniel Berg is Skype’s Chief Technology Officer

Skype has made significant strides in audio over the past few years. We were the first company to bring wideband audio to a broad audience. We’ve introduced robust echo cancellation, combined with pre-processing (noise suppression, automatic volume control, and so on), to give you the best possible experience, regardless of whether you’re using a headset or built-in microphone and speakers.

Last year, our talented engineering team followed up with the introduction of the SILK audio codec, which is included in recent versions of Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac – and soon on mobile devices like the iPhone. SILK enables super-wideband audio and optimizes call quality, even in low network bandwidth environments. It uses 50% less network bandwidth than previously required and is the outcome of a three year long development process, which focused on four things:

• improving audio bandwidth going from 8 kHz to 12 kHz, meaning that a SILK conversation sounds like you are in the same room as the person you are speaking with
• providing real-time bandwidth scalability to deal with degraded network conditions
• balancing codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
• delivering a robust solution that delivers a more consistent audio experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual’s voice signature

Making SILK available to an ecosystem of partners began last year, which has helped open the door to its adoption across a wide range of platforms, applications and devices by developers and chip manufacturers, as well as consumer electronics device manufacturers. By offering it to partners in this way, we’re removing one of the biggest hurdles to adoption of wideband audio, while setting a new industry-wide standard in speech processing: clearer, richer, warmer sound.

This week, we took another big step. We’ve published the source code for SILK in an Internet Draft that we submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). This means that anyone and everyone can now see, download, use and improve upon the software*. More importantly, this represents a key step in the development of an international standard for a wideband codec for use on the Internet.

With this submission, Skype has brought its years of experience to the table, ensuring that the final standard is of the highest quality. Skype plans on fully engaging and participating in this process, and submission of the source code is an important indication of our commitment to its success. Finally, I’d like to thank our audio team for the incredible work they’ve done to date. It’s thank to their efforts that we’re able to imagine a future where high quality real-time communications is everywhere. Having a standard codec for the Internet is a key piece of that vision.

* Use of SILK is subject to the applicable licensing terms. For more information please contact us.

Advances in audio