An ITU standard PCM codec that converts analog speech (audio) to a stream of digital data and back again.

G.711 is a sample-based codec with an ITU recommendation of 8000 samples per second over a frame of eight samples. Thus, G.711 represents (in one frame) 1 ms of speech.

G.711 uses mu-law companding in the U.S. and Japan, and a-law companding in Europe.

Compared to standards used for POTS networks, G.711 converts to and from analog and digital without compression of any kind. In other words, it requires a full 64Kbps of digital bandwidth. This generally means it has the highest quality of the codecs in normal use on telephone networks.