Telephoning With LTE—VoLTE or Volga

There are surf sticks, router or data cards for computers, but Smartphone owners will not only surf but also calling and texting. There are different technical ways to offer besides faster data transfer and telephony. Which path to choose LTE network operator, is meanwhile not clear, there are some uncertainties. It’s also unclear whether the new LTE Smartphone currently really offer what you would expect from such a device into a super fast network. The usual headache of first users is that they usually report functions that the networks are running slowly or with batteries that are empty after a few hours of use.

 

One thing is clear that the upgrading of the networks on additional functions such as the one hand calls for the network operator is not free; it will cost a lot of money. On the other hand, the users want surf and even better with new expensive LTE Smartphone, the expensive rates at least as good as the old UMTS model.

 

The Rustic Method: Back to GSM and UMTS

 

The simplest theoretical method to offer telephone is reliance on older networks. When the LTE Smartphone to surf the LTE network, a call comes, it comes out of the LTE network and into the GSM or UMTS network calls. In other words, you can surf the LTE network or the GSM/UMTS network calls. It would be theoretically possible. However, the simultaneous operation of two transceivers will bring some problems to a mobile device, such as lousy battery life. The second disadvantage of having recourse to old networks apart from the interruption of the data link: it takes significantly longer for a voice connection is established.

For the rustic solution, that recourse to an old wireless network and call interruptions limited data usage via LTE, has been the American mobile operator Metro PCS decided. Metro PCS offered worldwide in the first LTE Smartphone in its new LTE network, and how many customers you could win it, concealing the company. But apparently saw Metro action, it now wants to upgrade the telephony technology to VoLTE shortly.

The Majority Solution: Voice over LTE, VoLTE

Voice over LTE ( VoLTE ) describes a new technology for the transfer of mobile phone calls in LTE network. The change from GSM and UMTS phone technology to VoLTE is – in simple terms, the shift from analog or ISDN lines to IP telephony comparable.

 

With the old telephony technology, a separate line for conversation is provided, the data on a different transmission run secreted. With the new networks, everything runs on Internet technologies and the talks are treated as data packets that are transmitted along with other data packets. Therefore one must of course int eh LTE core network set up an additional new location, this is called the IP Multimedia Subsystem. With the system, calls are treated like simple Internet files.

 

This solution is called VoLTE, it is currently being sought by many network operators worldwide, the U.S. now wants to implement next to Metro PCS LTE is also the largest provider Verizon Wireless. It is the technical solution that will end all use LTE operators, unless they agree. But it is costly – the mobile network operators have to adapt their IT infrastructure to the new system.

 

The Outsider: Volga

Therefore we have devised a further intermediate step that once does not cost as much and also gives good results in terms of the speed of a connection setup or the voice quality. The technology is called Volga, which is the abbreviation for anything cumbersome expression Voice over LTE via Generic Access.

 

Using this technology, an additional point will be created through which the calls go, but this time not inside, it’s outside the LTE network. This new board is the VANC, which stands for Volga Access Network Controller. About him, so to speak, the phone calls are funneled into the LTE core network, without having to change anything in the core network itself or adapt.  That is, they say, Volga, is faster and more cost-effective than the introduction of VoLTE.

 

 

 

LTE in 2013: The Top 5 predictions

While it first appeared as a live commercial network technology at the tail end of 2009, it really wasn’t until 2011 that LTE could really be called a mainstream technology. It really hit the ground in 2012 but as it stands it is only really widely deployed in North America, South Korea and Japan. In 2013 however, we expect it to truly become mainstream proposition in many countries around the world, particularly in Europe.

 

Here then are our Top 5 predictions for LTE in 2013.

1. LTE handsets:

With more LTE networks will inevitably come more LTE handsets. It’s fairly sound logic, but the analyst figures are there to back that up. According to Boston’s Strategy Analytics global sales of LTE smartphones will triple to 275 million handsets in 2013, up from 90 million sold in 2012. It might just be numbers but in many ways it’s quite exciting. With LTE networks and LTE handsets in people’s hands the rise of cloud services can really start to accelerate and encourage innovation as companies begin to compete for dominance in this rising space.

2.  Emergence of LTE in Africa:

One of most interesting areas for LTE in 2013 will be the emergence of the standard in Africa. That’s not to say it will hit the mainstream – anything but, but the technology will start to impact the continent. Vodacom is currently the only live service has launched in South Africa, with 70 active base stations at launch, while MTN is readying a limited launch service in Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, while Cell C has been making plans to. There are concerns such as high CAPEX costs, a lack of devices and a lack of spectrum to contend with. Nevertheless Informa Telecoms & Media is predicting 350,000 LTE subscriptions in Africa by the end of 2012. These issues and more, will be address at the LTE Africa conference, taking place on the 16th-17th July 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa.

3.  TD-LTE: Big in China

China was well known for furrowing its own path for 3G, using the TD-SCDMA standard so it would not have to be beholden to western technology standards. It’s sticking with TD for 4G, but crucially it looks as though this Time Division thing is going to be pretty popular worldwide. Sprint in the US is using it, as it P1 is Malaysia and of course as the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers, anything the China Mobile uses it going to have a huge impact of economies of scale. With well over a 100 TD-LTE at the moment 2013 could be a breakthrough year for TD-LTE.

 

 4.   VoLTE: Only fools rush in

Using Circuit switched Fallback for voice calls when you have an LTE network is horrible from a technical purist viewpoint, but with no negative customer feedback operators are not going to hurry to introduce new technology. Just ask Verizon Wireless and EE, who have already announced that they are pushing out their timelines for the commercial deployment of VoLTE. SK Telecom and Metro PCS may have deployed but we don’t see many joining them in 2013. To quote Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at Informa Telecoms & Media, “A business case that looks to be based solely on spectrum efficiency will struggle to gain enough executive support to justify a rushed investment plan”.

 

5.   LTE Small-Cell Backhaul:

Some comment from wireless infrastructure vendor Ruckus Wireless summed this up well with the following comment:

The launch of commercial 4G services from EE in October saw the UK join the LTE race. In order to achieve the network capacity required by increasing mobile data traffic, it will be necessary to augment these LTE macrocell build-outs with an underlay of small cells. This represents a new, and very significant, backhaul challenge because the mounting locations for these small cells (typically street lamps and traffic signals) are not a natural fit for fibre or microwave backhaul solutions. The optimum solution to this challenge is to use Wi-Fi in the 5GHz band to backhaul this traffic to a place where Ethernet is available. We will see lots of activity here as small cells are integrated in Wi-Fi APs, so that one unit can provide both small cells access and Wi-Fi backhaul.

 

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