Apple Job Postings Point Towards Continued Work on Voice Over LTE

[Tech198]

Carriers will support it. The reason is that LTE is far more spectrum efficient than previous technologies. Eventually, they will be able to retire previous technologies such as GSM, CDMA and UTMS and convert that spectrum over to LTE, where they get much more bang for the buck (in terms of the amount of data that can be moved over a given quantity of spectrum).

Additionally, having voice come over IP will allow them to exchange VoIP traffic with other carriers via peering agreements (essentially free on a marginal basis) rather than routing over the PSTN, where they incur connection costs. This is direction cable companies have taken with their voice product, as well as next generation telco offerings (for instance, my Verizon FiOS landline is VoIP for this reason, despite being offered by a traditional telco).

You reckon ? I can't see mobile carrier partening with Voip companies in any shape or form for free, or next to nothing data costs.

why would they ?

Mobile carriers are raking it in now, why would they wanna give that up... Apart from being its the biggest reason why they get their money from all of this. It is was allot cheaper, free, them mobile carriers would loose money, and that would basically mean PSTN call costs would sky rocket in terms of charges, since they would need to find other way to get 'rich'

I user Voip over 3g now, and its cheaper, not free by any means, but i'll always continue using it as long as i have data, because its expensive as hell if u use allot

Voice over LTE would be basically like "We will charge you more because we have higher quality, an dyou can do more" Basically, the more premium.

 

[hogo]

Great, so now they can throttle my voice calls too...

 

[KdParker]

VoLTE in T-Mobile is very nice to be sure, but it is frustrating that it's not interoperable. In other words, calls between different carriers, even when both parties support VoLTE, will be plain old voice calls.

Hopefully that will not be the case forever. I can see that in the short run as the work out the issues.

 

[shurcooL]

VoLTE is a big deal. Maybe not right now, but in a few years it is part of a major transition.

Eventually our phones will have 1 cellular radio, just for Data, and all device communication will travel over it. What this will mean is that you will no longer pay for "minutes" you'll simply pay for data. With that, the plans you subscribe to will be simpler and will be balanced out a little so as to allot more data/per dollar.

Voice will be high quality (think of FaceTime audio as it is now), plans will be simpler, and devices will have less 1 less radio to accommodate.

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Going forward, we'll see if its "counted" or not. Like i mention above, one day you won't pay for minutes, just data, and all of the devices data consumption will likely count.

Yep. I already live in that future because my "phone" is a retina iPad mini with cellular.

Actually, it looks more like this.

It has one radio, and voice (as well as maps, browsing the web, etc.) all goes over a dumb internet pipe (either LTE or wifi). I use FaceTime audio, FaceTime, skype, voip apps, and it's great.

Much cheaper than having a legacy phone with a voice plan.

 

[octothorpe8]

doesnt that eat up your data (for those not on unlimited plans)?

I've been using Facetime Audio whenever I can, and it sounds amazing and I suspect is pretty similar to VoLTE. (For those of you who haven't been using it, it's WAY better audio quality than cell-to-cell calls and also does full duplex — no waiting to "break in" when the other person is talking and can't hear you).

Anyway, I bring it up because Facetime lists how much data you used on the call and a 16 minute call nets about 8MB. So I guess an hour is ~32MB? Basically negligable when you're working with thousands of MB/month for your data plan.

 

[tennisproha]

What kind of plant? Did they give it to you free with your phone? Would be cool if it grew fruit or vegetables. Would be nice having unlimited plants.

it's not worth it anymore. the plants get choked anyway once they hit a few Gbytes. I still have mine but I'm gonna ditch it once I upgrade my phone.

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…also does full duplex — no waiting to "break in" when the other person is talking and can't hear you).

what does this mean exactly? can you explain further? I'm curious.

I can't seem to FaceTime on my iPhone 4S anymore. just keeping saying 'connection lost'.

 

[DipDog3]

I've been using Facetime Audio whenever I can, and it sounds amazing and I suspect is pretty similar to VoLTE. (For those of you who haven't been using it, it's WAY better audio quality than cell-to-cell calls and also does full duplex — no waiting to "break in" when the other person is talking and can't hear you).

Anyway, I bring it up because Facetime lists how much data you used on the call and a 16 minute call nets about 8MB. So I guess an hour is 32MB? Basically negligable.

FaceTime Audio sounds so much better that I don't even make regular phone calls anymore.

 

[wxman2003]

Verizon will need to vastly improve it's LTE foot print for VoLTE to work. Unless they plan to abandon their rural market.

 

[RPV69]

Hi guys. I can answer some of the questions posed here re VoLTE. I'm a senior network designer for one of the UK mobile operators and I've been working on VoLTE network designs for the past 18 months or so. In a nutshell, LTE aka 4G doesn't have a native voice service. IMS (IP Mobile Subsystem) has become the defacto standard for providing a voice service over LTE. If a mobile telco deploys an LTE network without an IMS, they will use something called CSFB (Circuit Switched Fall Back). This basically relies on 3G or 2G coverage for the voice call. Your data will be on LTE but your voice will be on 3G or 2G. With IMS, the voice service runs on top of LTE. No 3G or 2G coverage is needed. IMS isn't just about voice. The network operator deploys an IMS core along with application servers. Those servers will typically provide the voice and SMS services we're all used to on a cellular network. The cool thing about an IMS is that application servers can be added at any time to provide new services. This will probably include services which haven't even been dreamed up when the IMS is first deployed. VoLTE functions in a completely different way to 3G and 2G voice networks. The signalling is based on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) which looks a lot like HTTP. Telcos will still be running 2G and 3G networks for a long time due to legacy handsets, but LTE, IMS and VoLTE are where things are headed. One other thing. You'll still be billed for voice in the same way. The voice traffic is carried in IP packets but it's still classed as voice not data. So you'll still see the familiar tariffs of voice minutes plus megabytes per month. Hope this info is useful.

 

[GreenPixel]

I've been using Facetime Audio whenever I can, and it sounds amazing and I suspect is pretty similar to VoLTE. (For those of you who haven't been using it, it's WAY better audio quality than cell-to-cell calls and also does full duplex — no waiting to "break in" when the other person is talking and can't hear you).

what does this mean exactly? can you explain further? I'm curious.

Duplex and Simplex refer to if the communication system is 2 way (duplex) or one way (simplex). Some systems communication can be bidirectional but still only one device can transmit while the other receives. This is partial duplex. Full duplex means that both points can simultaneously transmit and receive.

 

[Reason077]

But that's not what this is? This is using a data signal to make voice calls; not use a CDMA/GSM network for voice and LTE for data, but rather LTE for both (and potentially making phones more universal if they support all LTE bands???)

I was referring to the part of the article which stated that VoLTE will be particularly beneficial to users on the Sprint and Verizon networks, because it will enable support for simultaneous voice and data - which those networks currently do not support.

 

[CrzyP]

This news doesn't leave much confidence that the iPhone 6 will have VoLTE.

 

[Nermal]

VoLTE is a big deal. Maybe not right now, but in a few years it is part of a major transition.

Interestingly, Spark in NZ has abandoned VoLTE with a claim that it's a "dead-end" technology (or, more specifically, that its IMS base is dead-end). It'll be interesting to see whether it truly does become widespread, or whether it becomes another VoRA.

 

[terrymr]

It should be noted that Voice over LTE is actually part of the standard - just the phone networks rolled out 3.5g and pretended it was full LTE.

 

[kdarling]

Subscribers on CDMA networks (Sprint and Verizon) will further benefit from VoLTE, as it allows the simultaneous use of data and voice, something that's not currently possible.

That is, not currently possible on the iPhone.

I was referring to the part of the article which stated that VoLTE will be particularly beneficial to users on the Sprint and Verizon networks, because it will enable support for simultaneous voice and data - which those networks currently do not support.

Android phones on Verizon support voice + LTE by using two radios at once.

(The current GSM network solution is to drop the LTE connection and fall back to 3G, whenever you need to use data + voice. And it can take a long time for it to move back to using LTE when the voice call is over.)

Of course, VoLTE solves both problems. Not to mention that it'll surely make baseband chip supplies like Qualcomm happy to eventually be able to drop all the circuitry currently used by legacy methods.

Eventually our phones will have 1 cellular radio, just for Data, and all device communication will travel over it. What this will mean is that you will no longer pay for "minutes" you'll simply pay for data.

I hope not. Why do people keep wishing to pay for voice calls with their data plan?

Why would anyone want to pay more for a call from a place with a noisy background ( = more data)?

Why would anyone want to pay more for a call where you talked more (= more data) than one where there was lots of silence ( imagine teen lovers sighing into the phone).

Be careful for what you wish.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I can see voice charges disappearing completely. Already, in most UK plans at least, voice and text are unlimited and free and the money is made on data (which they realised a couple of years ago couldn't be sold as unlimoted for free). So this makes no difference whatsoever.

 

[wikiverse]

Perhaps apple should work on extending battery life first or making LTE much, much more power efficient.

I have yet to meet a single person with an iPhone that hasn't switched off LTE entirely because it drains the battery too quickly.

I'm not sure that VoLTE is really going to help me if I can only have 2 hours of battery life after a 10 minute phone call.

 

[DeafMacMobile]

Still net neutrality violation!

Both LTE and VoLTE are internet based. Carriers want to use voice billing instead of data. It is wrong thing for them to do that. We already have voice interoperability on any telephone and mobile devices. We still haven't got video interoperability yet. It is time for LTE and VoLTE to be integrate and make this as video interoperability once for all. We can make a choices - voice calls or video calls.

For this reason, we are very much concern about our video call accessibility via P2P and Video Relay Service (VRS).

 

[PocketSand11]

VoLTE is a big deal. Maybe not right now, but in a few years it is part of a major transition.

Eventually our phones will have 1 cellular radio, just for Data, and all device communication will travel over it. What this will mean is that you will no longer pay for "minutes" you'll simply pay for data. With that, the plans you subscribe to will be simpler and will be balanced out a little so as to allot more data/per dollar.

Voice will be high quality (think of FaceTime audio as it is now), plans will be simpler, and devices will have less 1 less radio to accommodate.

There's also SMS, which has to be transitioned or killed off since it runs on 2G. I'd prefer the latter

 

[Nermal]

There's also SMS, which has to be transitioned or killed off since it runs on 2G. I'd prefer the latter

It doesn't need to run on 2G; my current provider doesn't even have 2G and SMS still works.

 

[MattInOz]

Can you say 6S feature?

Well maybe but what about iWatch feature?

Single Data only radio yet you can still use it as a phone completely independent of an iPhone or other smart phone.

To me the iWatch would make a lot more sense that way than as a accessory to another device. Still skeptical of the whole smartwatch thing but that would be closer to MVP.

 

[RobertMartens]

That's funny! Lol. Oops....it's been corrected.

Since we are correcting spelling, can someone tell padmini that 'a lot' is not spelled 'allot'. I feel much better now.

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Whether it is a movie or a webpage or someone's digitised voice it is only data.

So unlimited voice plans will go away, finally. (because it is fake)

And we will only have data plans.

It makes me think of charging for 'extra bags' on a flight.

All weight is equal to the airplane. You should pay according to how much the total of you and your bags weigh. Period. Someday the airplane companies will get the balls to do this. And they should!

 

[PocketSand11]

It doesn't need to run on 2G; my current provider doesn't even have 2G and SMS still works.

Yeah, you're right. My mistake. I was mixing up SMS over LTE and SMS over IP.

 

[Analog Kid]

VoLTE is a big deal. Maybe not right now, but in a few years it is part of a major transition.

Eventually our phones will have 1 cellular radio, just for Data, and all device communication will travel over it. What this will mean is that you will no longer pay for "minutes" you'll simply pay for data. With that, the plans you subscribe to will be simpler and will be balanced out a little so as to allot more data/per dollar.

Voice will be high quality (think of FaceTime audio as it is now), plans will be simpler, and devices will have less 1 less radio to accommodate.

First, they're going to need to put in a hell of a lot more LTE towers. I usually turn off LTE support on my iPhone 5 because coverage is so unreliable that 4G is faster.

Won't this also require many more LTE towers than 2G towers to cover the same area? I'm pretty sure the LTE towers need to be packed more densely to sustain the data rates.

All of this means that the older radios aren't going to go away-- there has to be a fall back for voice. People are willing to accept intermittent data, but they expect voice to work always and everywhere. 911 is probably a whole other layer of requirements on this.

While I agree with your vision, the carriers are very reluctant to admit they're nothing but a PHY. They think they offer services and other features that make their bandwidth more valuable. I'm not convinced they're going to suddenly wake up and say, "really we're just a radio modem."

 

[nutmac]

Hopefully that will not be the case forever. I can see that in the short run as the work out the issues.

Hope so. VoLTE sounds fantastic over T-Mobile.