⚠️ Please note that this article provides information for Audio Bitrate Adaptation, with images from the Aircall Phone app. While feature information here is relevant to Aircall Workspace, please also visit Aircall Workspace - Quality settings to see images of Aircall Workspace.
Aircall now allows users to choose the audio bitrate of their calls, which may help when facing issues with your network/call quality.
Technical background
By default, the bitrate of an Aircall voice call is set to 32kbps using the Opus audio codec. This is the highest quality bitrate available for Opus in the Aircall platform. Aircall now provides the ability to change this setting.
The majority of Aircall voice calls connect to a landline or mobile number, and these voice calls are transcoded at our media centers into G.711 codec at 64kbps for transport to traditional phones. Since G.711 is lossless, the quality of voice is equivalent to a much lower bitrate in Opus.
Due to this, Aircall’s Audio Bitrate setting enables users to reduce their bitrate to a lower setting, where:
- High: 32kbps
- Medium: 24kbps
- Low: 16kbps
⚠️ Please note that although 16kbps is labeled "low," it is still sufficient at transporting better quality audio than G.711.
Accessing the Audio Bitrate feature
To access this setting, go to your User Settings by clicking the image/initials of your account in the upper-left of your Phone app. Then go to Preferences → Quality → Audio Bitrate to select you setting:
How to best use this feature
If a user is having issues with their calls, they should try changing their Audio Bitrate to a lower setting (e.g. from High to Medium). By reducing the Audio Bitrate, users struggling with bandwidth issues may see improvements with calls, as a lower bitrate means less bandwidth is needed for calls. Because of how the majority of Aircall voice calls are transcoded, while the bitrate and quality setting are reduced, the actual audio quality will not be decreased, and call performance may be increased.
⚠️ Please note that Aircall to Aircall voice calls may still benefit from using a higher bitrate.