The proliferation of smartphones and mobile devices is a testament to customer demand for more data; whether it’s music, video streaming or media-rich applications, service providers need to get with the program to ensuring future-proof data networks.
The service providers in question aren’t limited to wireless providers. The telecom industry overall, including traditional voice providers, absolutely must hop on the data bandwagon. As it is with data services, particularly in Japan and the U.S., revenue has surpassed voice services. One contributing factor to this trend is consumers realizing the value in third-party VoIP applications. So what does this mean for Voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE)?
Current market analysis from Visiongain is forecasting 101.7 million active VoLTE subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2015. VoLTE, given the current trends, is the natural progression for the lackluster voice services market.
VoLTE offers significant advantages over the traditional voice infrastructure. Being able to offer high-definition voice and seamless call handoff among various LTE networks is just a small start. VoLTE has the capacity to allow users to use many multiple media applications involving voice, video and data simultaneously on their smart devices. Operators win by offering higher value added applications, in turn increasing the average revenue per user and maintaining a common core, thus reducing capital expenditures.
Infonetics Research (News - Alert) once forecasted that there would be 12 commercial VoLTE networks by the end of 2013, while Arc Chart predicts that the number of VoLTE users worldwide will stand at 74 million by 2016.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences found that in the majority of cases, VoLTE voice quality is superior to that of existing equipment.
This new analysis from Visiongain (News - Alert) puts the VoLTE market ahead of the competition.
“Coupled with broader LTE rollouts, VoLTE is set to become the next major services race amongst operators. Not only are they locked in competition with one another, but also with third party VoIP providers also determined to cling to voice revenue,” according to Visiongain’s press statement.
VoLTE looks a lot like VoIP service over a wireless connection because it is exactly that; digitized voice-band audio data transmitted as IP packets and demodulated into voice-band audio. Voice is the major revenue generator for operators, and VoLTE is now being touted as the technology of choice for delivering voice to LTE networks.
Edited by Maurice Nagle