Perhaps one of the biggest stories to slip under the radar at the start of the year was AT&T’s announcement that they expect to see “mass-market VoLTE adoption” by 2015. This was hugely significant considering that a technology going mass market next year indicates a launch happening in 2014 and aggressive roll out to achieve mass market penetration.
Also, Verizon have been widely reported that it will launch VoLTE this year. With the two biggest operators in the US both deciding to launch high-definition voice services using VoLTE, it’s a major endorsement for this technology.
Given their investment in and roll out of LTE, it makes economic sense for both AT&T and Verizon to start to focus on LTE as a delivery network for voice services.
With 2014 launches on the cards, 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) LTE network will become a thing of the past.
Operators are continually looking for ways to reduce OPEX and equipment vendors are promoting some pretty impressive savings enabled by running voice and data services on the same LTE network.
According to one equipment vendor, these include 60% lower operations and maintenance costs, 75% lower site support costs, and 65% lower energy costs. Add this to the improved spectral efficiency (twice that of 3G / HSPA, and six times GSM), and then it would look like the economic arguments for VoLTE make sense.