Back in 2011, I was right in predicting that we will not see VoLTE as early as everyone had predicted. Looking through my twitter archive, I would say I was about right.
The big issue with VoLTE has always been the complexity. In a post last year I provided a quote from China Mobile group vice-president Mr.Liu Aili, "VoLTE network deployment is the one of the most difficult project ever, the implementation complexity and workload is unparalleled in history".
From a recent information published by IHS, there will only be 310 million subscribers by end of 2016 and 2020 is when 1 billion subscribers can make use of VoLTE. I think the number will probably be much higher as we will have VoLTE by stealth.
Below are couple of case studies, one from SK Telecom, presented by Chloe(Go-Eun) Lee and other from Henry Wong, CTO Mobile Engineering, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT). Hope you find them informative and useful.
As I said earlier, CSFB for now and VoLTE around 2014 - RT @mitchellkp: LTE won't find voice anytime soon http://t.co/mn0EwAw— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) September 7, 2011
Soon = before 2015. Ideally, if its working then never, until forced - RT @Gabeuk: I suspect VoLTE adoption will pick-up briskly in 2013.— Zahid Ghadialy (@zahidtg) July 13, 2011
The big issue with VoLTE has always been the complexity. In a post last year I provided a quote from China Mobile group vice-president Mr.Liu Aili, "VoLTE network deployment is the one of the most difficult project ever, the implementation complexity and workload is unparalleled in history".
From a recent information published by IHS, there will only be 310 million subscribers by end of 2016 and 2020 is when 1 billion subscribers can make use of VoLTE. I think the number will probably be much higher as we will have VoLTE by stealth.
Below are couple of case studies, one from SK Telecom, presented by Chloe(Go-Eun) Lee and other from Henry Wong, CTO Mobile Engineering, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT). Hope you find them informative and useful.
is it possible to get the pdf of the presentation?
ReplyDeleteit is hard to see the graphs on the clip
Sorry Michel, don't have it myself.
ReplyDeletenice referenced quote: "VoLTE network deployment is the one of the most difficult project ever, the implementation complexity and workload is unparalleled in history".
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt will require to find a lot of technical solutions to make VOLTE an industry standard due to technology complexity, interoperability / roaming specs and customer experience measurements (which has to be end-to-end). And from business prospective it will require additional CAPEX along with maintenance for new elements in the network.
Here is something to think about – Net Neutrality says that all traffic has be to treated equally – does that mean that voice traffic via your Skype/Viber/etc has to be treated same way as your VOLTE? When we say treated same that means same QoS.
Dennis, with all-ip networking, I would have thought that a voice call over ip will replace the traditional VoLTE in the long run, with the existing call admission controls shifted into QoS for voip and possible video calls. I am not sure if the operators have a different perspective due to the complexity in converting all the existing VoLTE calls into voip calls, by infrastructure and policy changes.
ReplyDeleteJerome, I would agree with you from the technology and business prospective that make sense but operators has to provide location for E911 service - emergency services in the US and FCC has requirements for preciseness of the location triangulation while any general voice call over ip (e.g. Skype) does not provide location. If operators does not comply with FCC they will take their license...
ReplyDeleteinteresting, though I never knew of. Thank you Dennis
ReplyDeleteFrederic, I guess we have Rx interface that allow Application Function to enforce QoS via in VoLTE scenario. And we can potentially use the interface for IoT with external applications. I do not think we have clear-cut commercial way of doing it for external application as for now. And I think net neutrality will not prevent the technologies but rather create opportunities for individuals and firms to cover the gap and provide an APIs / solutions. For example, an API that will allow Skype to talk with various PCRFs and request QoS that is same as VoLTE’s one. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the industry will address it!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. I agree that Telecom operators are treating traffic preferentially by enforcing QOS on voice/messaging services over IP. But they don't charge extra money for services like VoLTE/IP messaging etc. In the this case treating traffic preferentially doesn't end up in creating additional revenue for Operators. Can't say they won't come up with services which cost extra like RCS services. Additionally operators have comply with FCC regulations on location tracking, Identity, lawful intercept etc.
ReplyDeleteI would be interesting to see OTT vs Operators services argument pans out in the coming years. Hope customers will have enough choice!