Vodafone has just announced that it has completed trials of voice over LTE (VoLTE) services on its network and expects to launch the service this year. CTO Benoit Hanssen said “Vodafone will be one of the first to launch VoLTE in Australia”.
Telstra and Optus are known to have trialled the technology and Telstra demonstrated VoLTE calling on its live 4GX network in November 2014. .
According to Global Suppliers Association GSA VoLTE has been launched on 14 networks with 80 operators (including Vodafone, Telstra and Optus) in 42 countries investing in the technology.
VoLTE will provide not just voice but a suite of Rich Communication Services RCS based on IP Multimedia System IMS standards once implemented. IMS supports SMS, high definition voice, video telephony, multimedia sharing during voice calls and more. VoLTE roughly halves the call setup time and removes the necessity for a 4G phone to move to 3G for a voice call as is the case today.
As well as an LTE network operators need an evolved packet core network which is VoLTE capable and to install a IMS core to support the services. The LTE phones also need to support IMS. At present VoLTE compatible smartphones include the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 and Huawei Ascend Y550. New release high end phones which inlcude the Qualcomm SoC like Snapdragon 800 series or VoLTE modem chips will support VoLTE.
Unlike the many other over the top OTT messaging, voice and video services like Skype, iOS Facetime, Viber, WhatsApp Nimbuzz, Tango, LINE etc. VoLTE is 3GG standards based (3GPP IR.92). The capability is thus integrated in the device and in the network and optimised for performance, capacity, power drain etc.
Operators are generally not rushing to bring VoLTE to market as it does require robust LTE network coverage, a population of VoLTE capable phones as well as investment in IMS capable core network. As in Australia where operators, by and large, have good coverage 3G networks to carry voice then the incentive to spend capital to move this voice to LTE has not been strong. Now as more devices are available and 4G network coverage is improving with the inclusion of 700 MHz (850MHz for Vodafone) on LTE the time is starting to be right for the move.
It will be interesting to see the marketing and customer take up of VoLTE/IMS features beyond HD voice. Standards based video telephony has been a feature of WCDMA and was initially much hyped in 2003 but you never hear about it today. IMS likewise has been around for a long time with not much traction. Time will tell.