Despite plenty of hype, the progress towards commercial VoLTE services has been hesitant, as carriers wait for the level of LTE and IMS deployment to make sense of the investment. However, the technology is set for sharp uptick in 2014, often as part of a broader rich communications services (RCS) strategy, and as always, support from China Mobile affects the entire space.
The world’s largest cellco by user numbers has announced it will launched commercial VoLTE next year, by which time it expects to have received the commercial licences to convert its huge trial networks into fully fledged consumer offerings. CEO Li Yue told the GTI Asia conference this week that the company would start testing a version of VoLTE technology for its TDD network in the fourth quarter, followed by a wide field trial in the first half of 2014.
This would kickstart the TD-LTE flavor of the 4G IP-based voice platform, and put Mobile only a couple of quarters behind FD-LTE giants like Verizon Wireless in terms of commercial VoLTE roll-out. So far, VoLTE has been commercially launched by the three South Korean cellcos and the US’s MetroPCS (now T-Mobile).
‘By the fourth quarter of 2014 we will have a full commercial launch of VoLTE services,’ said Li. ‘We hope VoLTE will become a global mainstream voice standard for LTE and a solution to integrate FDD and TDD.’ He said the all-IP architecture would provide better cost efficiencies, capacity, spectral efficiency and the opportunity to offer added value messaging and rich media services ‘ all advantages over sticking with the more immediate voice option, circuit switch fallback to legacy networks. VoLTE will also pave the way for easier deployment of HD voice.
The vendors are lining up to attract China Mobile’s attention, as it prepares to mount its largest TD-LTE equipment tender to date, in anticipation of licences being awarded this year. According to China Daily, the cellco plans to buy 207,000 base stations and associated gear to deploy in 31 provinces, increasing its capex spend by almost 50% compared to 2012, with LTE accounting for an outlay of CNY42bn in 2014.
This week, Ericsson demonstrated HD VoLTE over a TD-LTE network, using a commercial smartphone (a Sony Xperia SP M35t, which supports both LTE flavors, TD-SCDMA, HSPA and GSM, over no fewer than 13 bands). This handset will be one of the first to launch when China Mobile gets its commercial licence. Ericsson’s demonstration took place at its innovation lab in Shanghai in the first such public showcase on a commercial cellphone. The demo linked to core and IMS nodes located in Ericsson’s VoLTE competence center in Anyang, South Korea.
Jan Signell, president of Ericsson’s north east Asia region, said in a statement: “With today’s demonstration, we have brought VoLTE yet another step closer to full commercialization, contributing to the true globalization of the TD-LTE ecosystem. We are especially pleased to be achieving this breakthrough, together with Sony, when China is about to launch the world’s largest TD-LTE network.’
In February, Ericsson and China Mobile made the first demonstration of a dual-mode HD VoLTE call between FDD and TDD networks.
Meanwhile, also vying for Mobile’s favors, Nokia Siemens claimed this week that it had broken the record for TD-LTE upload speed, reaching 56Mbps on a commercial base station by deploying MIMO and a single 20MHz carrier. The throughput speed was recording on a test network in Hangzhou, China, running NSN’s Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station with Single User-MIMO technology. Last year, NSN pushed uplink speed beyond even TD-LTE-Advanced specifications using the same base station with Multiuser MIMO.