By Tim Gray
TMCnet Contributing Editor

Ditech Networks (News - Alert), Inc., a developer of voice processing systems for communications networks, says South American mobile phone networking giant Oi will deploy its solutions to ensure voice quality for customers.

The Brazilian service provider Oi, which means “hello” in Portuguese, employed Ditech solutions designed to reduce background noise and echo on calls for its users during the recent 2007 Pan American Games in Rio De Janeiro.

Although Oi has established a competitive technological base over many of its competitors in Brazil, the two-week athletic competition which attracted more than 40,000 sports fans from around the world posed several unique challenges for the company and its mobile users.

For example, maintaining high-quality mobile calls amid the boisterous crowds and sometimes remote locations, as well as providing high-level service to foreign visitors who used roaming with GSM mobile devices required the implementation of new technology.

Oi chose to implement Ditech's Voice Quality Assurance (VQA) solution that improves the call experience for current subscribers in addition to the thousands of travelers who visited Rio de Janeiro.

Antonio Parrini, engineering director at Oi, said Ditech's VQA solution allowed Oi to provide high-value mobile service even under the kind of extreme conditions found during the Pan American Games.

"Not only can Oi deliver improved voice quality, but Ditech's solution lets us make greater use of half-rate codecs to increase network capacity," said Parrini in a statement.

The solution reduces background noise and echo on calls while simultaneously adjusting voice levels, according to Ditech. Additionally, it now allows Oi to utilize speech compression technology, which is a cost-effective method to increase network capacity to support a surge in mobile phone users.

Because the demand for mobile service in Latin America is growing significantly, adding capacity for a big event like the Pan American Games made the effort all the more challenging, according to Todd Simpson, vice president of marketing for Ditech Networks.

”Oi has solved the problem of rapid subscriber growth with improved voice quality and Ditech is proud to be part of the company family," said Simpson.

Oi is the largest private corporation in Brazil and provides mobile phone service to over 13.4 million customers throughout 16 Brazilian states.

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Tim Gray is a contributing editor for TMCnet.