Qualcomm and Ericsson have revealed they have completed the first successful handover of VoLTE to W-CDMA.
The vendors announced they conducted the handover using single radio voice call continuity (SRVCC), a 3GPP specified feature for voice handovers from LTE to 3G.
The handover occurred on Ericsson network gear, using a handset powered by a Qualcomm snapdragon chip.
According to Qualcomm SVP of product management Cristiano Amon, because operators are expected to use 3G and LTE in tandem for some time, “the ability for multimode 3G/LTE mobile devices to connect to different network technologies will be [increasingly] important.”
Qualcomm and Ericsson plan to demonstrate the call switching at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which commences on February 27.
The milestone follows the commercial launch in 2011 of circuit-switched fallback (CSFB), a method of a single radio to switch from an LTE connection to a 3G connection when calls are made or received.
But despite the technological progress being made, many operators attending September's LTE Asia appeared in no hurry to deploy voice over their respective LTE networks, indicating a preference to wait until LTE is more ubiquitous.