Nokia CEO Makes First 3D Spatial Audio Phone Call

(RTTNews) - Nokia (NOK) has successfully demonstrated the "world's first cellular call using new Immersive Voice and Audio Services or IVAS" codec, making a breakthrough in voice communication technology.

According to the company, the latest technology provides real-time experience to the caller, where they can hear everything clearly on the call as if they are with the other person.

The technology provides three-dimensional sound experience to callers, compared to today's monophonic smartphone call experience, where the sound is compressed into a single channel.

The first immersive call was made by Nokia's President and CEO Pekka Lundmark to Stefan Lindstrom, Finland's Ambassador of Digitalization and New Technologies, using the 3GPP IVAS codec over a 5G network.

"We have demonstrated the future of voice calls," commented Lundmark.

"This groundbreaking audio technology takes you to the caller's environment creating a spatial and massively improved listening experience for voice and video calls, offering significant benefits for enterprise and industrial applications," the CEO continued.

The Finland-based company added that the IVAS codec technology has not been implemented in mobile networks yet.

"The live immersive voice and audio experience enabled by IVAS improves the richness and quality of the call, and the three-dimensional sound experience makes interaction more lifelike and engaging, bringing a wealth of new benefits to personal and professional communication," said Lindstrom. "Immersive communications technology will also take XR and metaverse interaction to the next level."

Currently, the IVAS codec technology is used in apps like Netflix (NFLX), Apple Music (AAPL), and Disney Plus (DIS) to offer lifelike audio experience to users, The Verge reports.

"This is now becoming standardized … so the network providers, chipset manufacturers, handset manufacturers can begin to implement it in their products," Nokia President Jenni Lukander told to Reuters.