Snom has announced klarVOICE. No, it's not Klingon, it's a wideband handset that can be adopted to snom VoIP phones.

Wideband or "HD" style codecs provide higher quality voice calls than the stock wireline PSTN/POTS standard sampled across 8 kHz. The new klarVOICE handset works with the G.722 wideband codec and with a sampling rate double that of a standard VoIP call is capable of offering an effective pass through rate of 50 to 7,000 Hz; so-called "narrowband" VoIP calls come in at about 200 to 3,300 Hz.  

The klarVOICE handset requires $32.50 (suggested retail price) and a snom 3xxx series VoIP phone using the company's latest firmware release. An entry-level snom 300 phone lists around $183, so adding wideband as an upgrade isn't that much of a stretch.

Snom's move to support G.722 makes life more interesting in the HD voice arena. Cisco and Polycom also support G.722 on the handset side and Asterisk provides IP PBX support. Freeconferencecall.com supports wideband voice through WYDE voice hardware developed by a "sister company." Skype also supports G.722, but you have to go through some contortions to have Skype talk to something other than another Skype client.

For more:
- PhonePlus carries the snom klarVOICE [1] specs

Related articles:
Extending SIP to Skype [1], VoIP to iPod Touch
Whence HD Voice? [1]