Voice over LTE (VoLTE) reportedly is set for release in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the network of du, a regional mobile services and telecommunications company.
"With VoLTE, we will be exploiting the full potential of 4G LTE (News - Alert),” said Saleem AlBalooshi, executive vice president of network development and operations at du. “Our commitment to our customers has been reconfirmed with this fastest installation and testing of VoLTE on a live network. VoLTE will significantly enhance the call experience for customers using our 4G LTE network, adding more value through the use of the latest technology innovations."
VoLTE has experienced a lot of global interest, particularly as big international providers like AT&T (News - Alert), T-Mobile and Verizon have begun to expand their VoLTE networks in anticipation of wider adoption rates in 2015.
“With 2014 launches underway, it seems like we’re moving to a stage where, over time, running voice services over circuit-switch networks and a data service over a separate IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert)) LTE network will become a thing of the past,” wrote Martin Morgan in a recent blog for Innovations Insights.
It’s an industry change that holds both opportunities and threats to the core business model of mobile providers.
“Fourth generation (4G) data services are in the deployment stage, but is will be a few years until there is ubiquitous LTE coverage,” according to a market report from Research Moz. “Meanwhile, there are competitive threats emerging against incumbent carriers' core voice services. This is coming at a time when all bearer services (voice and data) are becoming marginalized due to market expectations, economic conditions, and a coming supply side expansion in terms of network capacity.”
But du isn’t letting the naysayers slow them down. The company is the first to install and test VoLTE on a live network in the UAE region. According to du, the VoLTE technology now enables its 4G LTE network to offer HD Voice over LTE.
Edited by Alisen Downey