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VoLTE doesn't even make sense to use from a network provider's perspective. 3g architecture already exists and isn't going anywhere soon while people still have

VoLTE doesn't even make sense to use from a network provider's perspective. 3g architecture already exists and isn't going anywhere soon while people still have 3G phones. Calls generally aren't made over 3G to this day, they're made over 2G. Since frequency spectrum is so expensive and limited, packet sizes need to be as small as possible...so unless they can fit more people on an LTE voice channel compared to a 3G voice channel, the networks aren't going to be jumping to use VoLTE. LTE should be focused on data for right now, and keep 3G for voice. When was the last time someone said, "Gee, I wish my call was faster!" anyways? The point that keeping the phone in 3G for voice and LTE for data will drain your battery doesn't make sense to me. Keep the phone in a 3G state for SMS, voice, and push notification type data interactions, and when data is used, then it would utilize LTE. That would actually SAVE battery life, since as the article states, LTE is a battery hog.

kristofferR 14y ago
It's not about the speed of the call (from the consumers point of view), it's about the audio quality. Higher bandwidth will enable vastly improved audio quality. People may not say "Gee, I wish my call was faster!", but they sure say "Gee, can you speak clearer?"/"Gee, I can't understand you" thousands of times every day due to muddy/compressed call quality due to the compressed nature of our current cell phone calling infrastructure. Apple made a big deal about the so-called HD Audio capabilities of the iPhone 5, which is still below FM (and VoLTE quality). And while LTE may be a battery hog right now since it's so new, don't forget that 3G was way worse when it was new. Battery consumption on LTE will improve drastically quite fast. In a year or two it probably won't use much more battery than 3G does.
- pja 14y ago
  It's always been vaguely surprising to me that Apple hasn't used the iPhone platform to force the carriers to upgrade the voice quality. It's exactly the kind of thing that would cement the iPhone brand as the high-quality, aspirational choice. Either Apple decided it wasn't worth the effort, or the carriers flatly refused I guess.
  - yaantc 14y ago
    It's not in Apple (or any phone maker) control today. With current technology you pipe 8 kHz voice to the wireless modem and the encoding is done there, following strictly defined cellular standards. So it's in the operator control.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - apendleton 14y ago
      Apple has extra leverage, though, because of its perceived importance in the market. Look at visual voicemail: Apple decided IVR voicemail sucked, and worked its way through carriers until it could find one that would support changing its voicemail architecture. That carrier then turned both the iPhone and that feature into a competitive advantage. If Apple really wanted to, it seems like they could have strong-armed their way into some higher-quality audio standard -- earlier deployment of VoLTE if nothing else, since that's going to happen eventually anyway. That said, I'm not especially surprised that they didn't; Apple has historically actually been pretty timid with wireless technology, and the biggest bafflingly absent feature of the original iPhone was that it didn't include a 3G radio even though 3G was already widely deployed.
      - pja 14y ago
        Exactly. They didn't even need VoLTE; higher quality voice has been possible on 3G networks for years. If you have an HD-voice capable phone, then I believe you should get HD calls if you use Orange (now Everything Everywhere) in the UK for instance. Lots of modern smartphones support it, but it's not always turned on apparently.
      - otterley 14y ago
        There are limits to Apple's leverage in the mobile marketplace. When the original iPhone was introduced, they got AT&T to implement Visual Voicemail and ship the phone without a carrier branding logo, but not much else. They couldn't even get AT&T to agree to ship the phones without a subsidy lock, despite the fact that there was no subsidy for the first few months (nor could you legitimately unlock an iPhone associated with AT&T ever until earlier this year). At this point, analysts and investors expect Apple to ship over 5 million iPhones in the first weekend of availability. Resistance by a single carrier (there are 3 now, and that's just in the USA) will seriously impact that number. Moreover, carriers have other serious challengers at their disposal and are pushing them hard (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S3). Asking a carrier to promote a phone is one thing. Demanding they overhaul their entire network is probably asking too much.
mcbridematt 14y ago
> Calls generally aren't made over 3G to this day, they're made over 2G You must be talking about CDMA (EV-DO vs 1xRTT) only. Not true with GSM+UMTS networks. As far as network operators are concerned, the more data (incl. voice channels) carriers that can be fit into their spectrum allocation and/or existing site layout, the better. Of course they want to use LTE for voice, but the VoLTE saga has been a long and drawn out one.

kristofferR 14y ago

It's not about the speed of the call (from the consumers point of view), it's about the audio quality. Higher bandwidth will enable vastly improved audio quality. People may not say "Gee, I wish my call was faster!", but they sure say "Gee, can you speak clearer?"/"Gee, I can't understand you" thousands of times every day due to muddy/compressed call quality due to the compressed nature of our current cell phone calling infrastructure. Apple made a big deal about the so-called HD Audio capabilities of the iPhone 5, which is still below FM (and VoLTE quality). And while LTE may be a battery hog right now since it's so new, don't forget that 3G was way worse when it was new. Battery consumption on LTE will improve drastically quite fast. In a year or two it probably won't use much more battery than 3G does.

pja 14y ago
It's always been vaguely surprising to me that Apple hasn't used the iPhone platform to force the carriers to upgrade the voice quality. It's exactly the kind of thing that would cement the iPhone brand as the high-quality, aspirational choice. Either Apple decided it wasn't worth the effort, or the carriers flatly refused I guess.
- yaantc 14y ago
  It's not in Apple (or any phone maker) control today. With current technology you pipe 8 kHz voice to the wireless modem and the encoding is done there, following strictly defined cellular standards. So it's in the operator control.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - apendleton 14y ago
    Apple has extra leverage, though, because of its perceived importance in the market. Look at visual voicemail: Apple decided IVR voicemail sucked, and worked its way through carriers until it could find one that would support changing its voicemail architecture. That carrier then turned both the iPhone and that feature into a competitive advantage. If Apple really wanted to, it seems like they could have strong-armed their way into some higher-quality audio standard -- earlier deployment of VoLTE if nothing else, since that's going to happen eventually anyway. That said, I'm not especially surprised that they didn't; Apple has historically actually been pretty timid with wireless technology, and the biggest bafflingly absent feature of the original iPhone was that it didn't include a 3G radio even though 3G was already widely deployed.
    - pja 14y ago
      Exactly. They didn't even need VoLTE; higher quality voice has been possible on 3G networks for years. If you have an HD-voice capable phone, then I believe you should get HD calls if you use Orange (now Everything Everywhere) in the UK for instance. Lots of modern smartphones support it, but it's not always turned on apparently.
    - otterley 14y ago
      There are limits to Apple's leverage in the mobile marketplace. When the original iPhone was introduced, they got AT&T to implement Visual Voicemail and ship the phone without a carrier branding logo, but not much else. They couldn't even get AT&T to agree to ship the phones without a subsidy lock, despite the fact that there was no subsidy for the first few months (nor could you legitimately unlock an iPhone associated with AT&T ever until earlier this year). At this point, analysts and investors expect Apple to ship over 5 million iPhones in the first weekend of availability. Resistance by a single carrier (there are 3 now, and that's just in the USA) will seriously impact that number. Moreover, carriers have other serious challengers at their disposal and are pushing them hard (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S3). Asking a carrier to promote a phone is one thing. Demanding they overhaul their entire network is probably asking too much.

mcbridematt 14y ago

> Calls generally aren't made over 3G to this day, they're made over 2G You must be talking about CDMA (EV-DO vs 1xRTT) only. Not true with GSM+UMTS networks. As far as network operators are concerned, the more data (incl. voice channels) carriers that can be fit into their spectrum allocation and/or existing site layout, the better. Of course they want to use LTE for voice, but the VoLTE saga has been a long and drawn out one.