Verizon (News - Alert) has revealed its latest plan, with an all-new VoIP phone and LTE-based small cell base stations on the way. Along with that, it’s completed its 4G wireless rollout plan across hundreds of markets, helping it bring its services to new locations and to stand out from the competition.
Essentially, Verizon is declaring that its LTE (News - Alert) network is pretty well complete, but its task isn’t completed there. Now it’s turning its focus to voice-over-LTE (VoLTE), and will begin phasing out its CDMA networks. By late 2014, it will launch its all-VoIP LTE-only phone, which will take call traffic from the circuit-switched 2G networks to the IP LTE one.
As it is now, Verizon’s CDMA network is quite fine for phone calls, so launching VoLTE depends on if it can match its LTE coverage to its 2G coverage. After all, it doesn’t want its customers to get disconnected from its 4G network, although it does see that VoLTE has much to offer.
For instance, Verizon’s VoLTE service would support more than just voice calls, as it would offer the multimedia communications features that other applications currently provide. As it’s an IP service, it can integrate with other applications, providing plenty of potential for developers and Verizon.
The VoLTE service is currently being tested, but we still have some time to wait before it’s made available. The plan is to launch it commercially in 2014, starting with traditional CDMA-LTE combo phones and spreading out from there. Meanwhile, Verizon is also launching its LTE small cells, helping provide improved capacity to areas that have to deal with constant traffic.
The switch to VoLTE may be a big one, but Verizon is taking it one step at a time, pacing itself properly so as to ensure that everything works and customers don’t get flung into something new without warning. This may very well help it stand out from the competition greatly, providing new capabilities and services that other providers won’t be able to match without VoLTE services of their own, although we shall have to wait until 2014 to see how it pans out.
Edited by Blaise McNamee