Nokia, Vodafone, and RingCentral are driving innovation in Immersive Voice and Audio Services (IVAS), redefining voice communication with three-dimensional spatial audio.
Being showcased at MWC 2025, this technology enhances remote calls by making conversations feel more natural and lifelike. IVAS expands beyond traditional voice services, improving business meetings, industrial operations, education, and even mobile calls with an immersive experience.
Nokia plays a key role in advancing IVAS, focusing on growing the ecosystem and integrating immersive audio experiences into communication platforms.
Vodafone is leveraging the technology to improve virtual collaboration, ensuring that remote and office-based participants feel equally engaged in meetings.
RingCentral highlights the broader impact of IVAS, emphasizing its role in hybrid work equity, inclusivity for visually impaired users, and AI-enhanced collaboration.
The IVAS standard, developed with input from 13 companies and included in 3GPP Release 18, builds on Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) known as HD Voice+. A major innovation is the Metadata-Assisted Spatial Audio (MASA) format, designed for smartphones and other devices with spatial audio constraints. The IVAS codec features an integrated renderer that supports head-tracked binaural audio and multi-loudspeaker playback, ensuring realistic sound positioning.
To power the IVAS experience at MWC, an immersive voice client software development kit captures spatial audio and converts it into the MASA format. This enables truly 3D voice communication across various applications. Demonstrations at the event highlight how IVAS improves multi-participant teleconferencing, making voices spatially distinguishable and reducing cognitive strain. One-to-one calls benefit from 360° audio, offering closeness, clarity, and accurate directional sound with head-tracking headphones.
In industrial environments, IVAS enhances remote servicing, detecting abnormal machine sounds and improving communication in noisy workplaces. The technology addresses the growing demand for advanced voice services, setting the stage for new products that leverage the 5G Advanced IVAS codec and Nokia’s Immersive Voice technology. Nokia, Vodafone, and RingCentral’s collaboration underscores their commitment to shaping the future of voice communication with IVAS.
