Global telecom Vodafone is currently testing its voice-over-LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) technology that it intends to release to its subscribers later this year.
The latest announcement from Vodafone states that it has completed its first successful test of transmitting voice calls through 4G and that further successes should lead to a release of the technology in Australia. Benoit Hanssen, the chief technology officer at Vodafone (News - Alert), said his company is using the technology to complete mobile connections at a rate that is two to three times faster than what was previously available. This, he says, is now possible because of an update to Vodafone's core network.
“There'll be virtually no lag between pressing the call button and being connected to the number you've dialed,” Hanssen said. “Vodafone will be one of the first to launch VoLTE in Australia.”
A summary of the Vodafone news release at PC Advisor says there are a number of VoLTE-compatible smartphones on the market that will work with the company's upgraded system. Those phones include the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung (News - Alert) Galaxy S5 and Note 4, and the Huawei Ascend Y550. The Vodafone network in Australia contains more than two million connected mobile devices on a network that can reach nearly 95 percent of the country's metropolitan population.
TMC indicated in August last year that Vodafone had selected Ericsson (News - Alert) to replace and upgrade its core network in Australia. Ericsson was contracted to install its own Evolved Packet Core and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) that would make it possible for Vodafone to implement policy control on a circuit-switched core.
The new core will allow customers to remain on the 4G network while using both data and voice/video services. The previous architecture, like others that did not support VoLTE, would revert back to 3G for voice calls. Now, the same type of data transmission can handle all aspects of a user's experience on his mobile device.
Edited by Alisen Downey