Man with the Golden Ear tunes up BT network

BT has unveiled the secret weapon it is using to make sure phone calls over its new £10bn IP network sound as good a possible: a team of specialists with golden ears.

The finely tuned listening skills of its team of voice quality specialists - dubbed the 'Golden Ears' - are being used to make sure the company's new network infrastructure matches the quality of the existing voice network.

The team boasts "refined audio senses comparable with the finely tuned palette of a wine connoisseur or the olfactory expertise of a 'nose' in the perfume industry", BT claimed.

Andy Heron, senior project manager for voice quality engineering, said in a statement: "There are jokes made about the Golden Ears tag but it's not about developing Superman-like hearing where you can hear a pin drop at five miles - it's more about being able to recognise, identify and determine the cause of the most subtle changes which would be imperceptible to most users."

He added: "We have an array of technology to do the scientific measurement but it's human voices we're carrying across our network and human ears listening at the other end - the human experience and perception is all important."

The switch over from the current network begins in the Cardiff area in late 2006. When the 21st Century Network is complete at the end of the decade, all of BT's services will be delivered by one dedicated IP network.