> around 2 * 8 kbps; that's more than GSM half-rate, with modern codecs it could actually sound acceptable It’s not only acceptable, it’s widely used. I.e. lot

> around 2 * 8 kbps; that's more than GSM half-rate, with modern codecs it could actually sound acceptable It’s not only acceptable, it’s widely used. I.e. lots of companies use g711 codec with 64kbps for internal intra-office communication and g729 with 8kbps voice bitrate for inter-office communication (with transcoders on the perimeters). It has been quite a standard approach to corporate voip design for years (decades). That said there is currently a shift to modern high- and adaptive-bitrate codecs, but it’s not instant.