There is some expectation that we will see some, if not all of the major U.S. carriers launch Voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) services this year. So does that mean that you will be able to experience the benefits that VoLTE can offer?
Potentially, there are three main benefits to VoLTE. The biggest benefit is that VoLTE will support higher quality calls and will connect calls much faster than a traditional GSM or CDMA call. Another benefit is that complicated billing could become a thing of the past, just a bad memory.
As the VoLTE transition is completed, carrier networks will be able to get rid of their aging legacy technology, which means that networks will be data only. The future could potentially pave the way for plans that don’t require text or voice minutes as everything will be handled over data.
However, the third benefit is something that everyone can get behind. I am talking about improved battery life. On most CDMA networks in the U.S., Android (News - Alert) phones that support simultaneous voice and data currently have to operate two radios. This drains the battery a lot faster.
While we can all be excited about the prospect of seeing the launch of VoLTE this year, who will actually be able to take advantage of the technology? Well, according to Broadsoft CTO Scott Hoffpauir, if you are a consumer then you probably won’t see VoLTE this year.
Hoffpauir believes that due to the fact that there is no money to be made in offering IP communications to consumers, they won’t see much of a difference. In a recent interview with GIGAOM, he said, “Consumer VoLTE is viewed by most carriers as a replacement for regular voice services. It’s a simpler network and ultimately it will be cheaper to run than their [2G voice] networks. … On the business side, carriers are looking at business services which are where they can see top-line growth.”
So the reason that we as consumers won’t be able to take advantage of any of the benefits mentioned above is that VoLTE doesn’t give us anything we don’t already have. The idea is that the 2G voice networks and traditional circuit switches work just fine.
Since the carriers will not be able to find an easy way to charge customers more for VoIP phone call than they can for traditional circuit-switched call, there does not seem to be such a rush in upgrading the network.
However, on the business side, that is a different story. According to Hoffpauir, VoLTE isn’t just a one-trick horse because unlike consumers, business can take advantage of many more services. Along with IP voice and messaging, carriers can layer any number of value-added features on top of VoLTE. These include services such as video conferencing, as well as other collaboration services to presence and universal voicemail boxes.
These are all the types of services that all of the carriers can charge businesses for. Since BroadSoft (News - Alert) is a company that actually sells the applications servers that fuel those add-on features, Hoffpauir does know of what he speaks.
Here is something to consider, with some many employees bringing in their own devices to use as their work phone or tablet, where does this separation of business and consumer fit in? In respect to this, Hoffpauir expects that dual-persona services powered by VoLTE will prove particularly popular. This could allow workers to host both a work and a personal identity which would include two separate phone numbers on one device.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker