With the increase in speed for data networks, the days of paying for minutes alongside a data plan may be numbered. Major cell phone carriers are dedicated to this idea, working toward the development of Voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) technologies. Voice over LTE will turn phone calls into another piece of data traveling over LTE networks, making phone calls just another app for smartphones. Earlier this week, Nokia announced that it has made a major step in VoLTE, with their first VoLTE call being made in Russia.
The call was made by MTS (News - Alert), Russia's largest telecommunications operator, over a telecom cloud network. MTS used Nokia's Cloud Application Manage for automated deployment and management of all cloud applications, while Nokia (News - Alert)'s Professional Services for VoLTE helped the operator ready the architecture and design of its network to enable multi-vendor integration and core migration. The project also took advantage of the Nokia's telco cloud based voice core technology, including its IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS), Telephony Application Server (TAS) and Home Subscriber Server (HSS).
The testing was conducted in MTS’s live LTE network, showing just how VoLTE technology can be applied to real-life networks. This test is a major step forward for VoLTE technology, as it proves that it is indeed a valid possibility for live networks.
“We are delighted to join forces in this pioneer project supporting MTS’s demonstration of voice services using LTE in a telco cloud,” said Kristina Tikhonova, head of East region, Networks. “We have the most comprehensive VoLTE solution on the market and our goal is to support operators’ migrations of voice and messaging traffic to LTE. With this demonstration, we further underscore that we are commercially ready and able to do this.”
While this may be the first VoLTE call made over a live telecom cloud network, Nokia does have some competition in VoLTE. Verizon (News - Alert) has been dedicated to bringing VoLTE service to the world since 2011, and made major steps forward a year ago. It’s expected that VoLTE will roll out for commercial use for Verizon customers this year. In Japan, DOCOMO has plans to launch its own VoLTE service.
Currently, even phones with 4G LTE service do not take advantage of VoLTE, instead relying upon older networks to deliver phone calls, however it seems this will soon change. When VoLTE technology does finally breakthrough, it will likely revolutionize the world of voice calls. People will no longer have to pay for their minutes alongside their data plans, and the quality of voice calls is expected to also increase as they will be delivered over high-speed networks as data.
Edited by Alisen Downey