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AT&T to launch their first VoLTE smartphone before years end?

ericdabbs

By ericdabbs
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ericdabbs Member Level: LTE Advanced

ericdabbs

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According to AT&T they are planning on launching a VoLTE smartphone before years end with a wider selection of VoLTE phones in the first half of 2014.

 

I am glad that AT&T and Verizon are both launching a VoLTE smartphone before years end to do the guinea pig testing.  I know Sprint and Tmobile will be watching and staying on the sidelines hoping to figure out lessons learned as they continue to build out their nationwide LTE network.

 

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/att-expects-launch-first-volte-smartphone-year/2013-10-08

 

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bigsnake49 Member Level: LTE Advanced

bigsnake49

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TIME OUT! Everyone on here has bragged about how only T-Mobile and Sprint will be able to upgrade to release 10 LTE-A and now At&t is claiming it can jump from release 8 to release 10 via software update? WTF!

 

Surprise!!! (said in a Gomer Pyle voice). I think only Verizon was thought to have needed site visits.

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Terrell352 Member Level: LTE Advanced

Terrell352

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Yeah but everyone made it seem like sprint could have LTE advanced before everyone else and that's not the case at all. Verizon is so far in the LTE game that even if they have to physically go to towers they could still finish first.

Surprise!!! (said in a Gomer Pyle voice). I think only Verizon was thought to have needed site visits.

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ericdabbs Member Level: LTE Advanced

ericdabbs

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I am guessing because ATT used RRUs for the LTE build out from the very beginning so they just need a software upgrade.  Maybe since Verizon didn't use RRUs for their 700 MHz LTE rollout that they need to go back to the towers and upgrade its equipment to use RRUs going forward.

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S4GRU Member Level: LTE Advanced

S4GRU

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Yeah but everyone made it seem like sprint could have LTE advanced before everyone else and that's not the case at all. Verizon is so far in the LTE game that even if they have to physically go to towers they could still finish first.

I've never heard anyone around here say that AT&T couldn't do LTE Advanced with their given equipment. You were making assumptions. Don't blame us that you assumed something.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

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illest_ios Member Level: eHRPD

illest_ios

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so i am just curious... for non smart phone users (flip phones and such) will VoLTE affect them negatively? lol my dad still is getting used to using his iphone compared to his simple moto renegade flip phone :P

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Nickel Member Level: 4G WiMax

Nickel

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I've been hearing that forever. I must have interpreted wrong. Shame I was looking foward to having it soon. Then again I'm still waiting on wide spread 1900 LTE.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk now Free

I think you are misremembering, Verizon used rel 8, but I think AT&T mostly used rel 9

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ericdabbs Member Level: LTE Advanced

ericdabbs

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I've been hearing that forever. I must have interpreted wrong. Shame I was looking foward to having it soon. Then again I'm still waiting on wide spread 1900 LTE.

 

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk now Free

 

LTE Advanced is pointless at the moment when not even half of the 39K Sprint sites still have not been upgraded to LTE yet.  So to me I don't mind if LTE Advanced on Sprint doesn't get deployed until mid 2014 when NV 1.0 should be wrapping up for the most part.

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milan03 Member Level: eHRPD

milan03

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VoLTE-compliant device launching this year doesn't mean they'll actually have commercial VoLTE service this year. They've carefully avoided talking about that part.

 

#RememberLGRevolutionFrom2011?

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Fraydog Member Level: LTE Advanced

Fraydog

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I've heard online scuttlebutt about AT&T testing VoLTE in certain markets, but I don't think that counts for anything. AT&T beating VZW to VoLTE would be interesting, if for no other reason than it's probably easier for 3GPP carriers to go to VoLTE earlier due to eSRVCC. I take it VZW and Sprint will wait until they have LTE over their footprint.

 

While it's possible for CDMA carriers to implement SRVCC, it seems as if Verizon and Sprint aren't going to use it.

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GinaDee Member Level: 1xRTT

GinaDee

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Nice to hear. 

 

Looks like AT&T (and Verizon) will be pioneers of Carrier Aggregation too.  I remember reading on here where people were trying to  paint AT&T as a carrier of limited spectrum and no path for LTE-A.  Looks like this is not the case.  Just because it ain't greenfiled doesn't mean it can't be done.  

 

AT&T has plenty of PCS and Cellular spectrum to re-purpose for their Aggregation strategy.  In the next 2 years I'm interested to see how they plan to use WCS.

 

Although AT&T plans to cover over 300 million with LTE by mid next year with their initial LTE phase from all accounts VoLTE can fall back seamlessly onto their HSPA network for calls outside of LTE's reach.  This is a good strategy. 

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milan03 Member Level: eHRPD

milan03

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AT&T desperately needs LTE-A to stay competitive with the rest. They're mixing and matching 5Mhz/10Mhz in various markets as they have almost no contiguous clean spectrum swaths that are larger than 15Mhz FDD.

 

Verizon doesn't need LTE-A in immediate future they have clean chunks for 20Mhz FDD LTE in many markets. That'll also help battery life on the terminal side, as the UE radio avoids two streams/twice the processing power drawn.

 

T-Movile has quite a few markets with 2x20Mhz options planned out for 2014/15 time frame, and Sprint can just open its wings and fly on the insane amount of 2.6Ghz band from Clearwire.

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Fraydog Member Level: LTE Advanced

Fraydog

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What Milan said.

 

Carrier aggregation isn't the best tech when it comes to battery life. AT&T has loads of spectrum but lots of it is fragmented.

 

However they are sitting on one band that has massive potential for 15x15 in lots of areas. That's their ridiculous PCS holdings. If they can launch VoLTE that frees up more carriers for LTE.

 

Looking at RootMetrics it seems as if AT&T is getting better network performance across markets but the PCS refarming isn't going to be easy. It will be like trying to play Jenga with that network.

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Nickel Member Level: 4G WiMax

Nickel

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What Milan said.

 

Carrier aggregation isn't the best tech when it comes to battery life. AT&T has loads of spectrum but lots of it is fragmented.

 

However they are sitting on one band that has massive potential for 15x15 in lots of areas. That's their ridiculous PCS holdings. If they can launch VoLTE that frees up more carriers for LTE.

 

Looking at RootMetrics it seems as if AT&T is getting better network performance across markets but the PCS refarming isn't going to be easy. It will be like trying to play Jenga with that network.

Oh how quickly you forget about WCS. 

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Fraydog Member Level: LTE Advanced

Fraydog

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Lots of handsets that use the MDM9615 baseband could be updated for VoLTE... right? *crickets*

 

Also, most of AT&T's WCS is 10x10 IIRC. It still has to be aggregated.

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Nickel Member Level: 4G WiMax

Nickel

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Lots of handsets that use the MDM9615 baseband could be updated for VoLTE... right? *crickets*

 

Also, most of AT&T's WCS is 10x10 IIRC. It still has to be aggregated.

Why do you have to aggregate a 10x10? If you make the band priority properly, then that can buy them enough time to work on refarming PCS 

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WiWavelength Member Level: LTE Advanced

WiWavelength

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Also, most of AT&T's WCS is 10x10 IIRC. It still has to be aggregated.

Why do you have to aggregate a 10x10? If you make the band priority properly, then that can buy them enough time to work on refarming PCS 

 

Reconfigured WCS 2300 MHz licenses are 5 MHz FDD.  But the A and B blocks are adjacent, so they can be used together for 10 MHz FDD, much as AT&T uses the Lower 700 MHz B and C blocks for 10 MHz FDD.  No carrier aggregation necessary.

 

Oh, and band 2 LTE 1900 will come before band 30 LTE 2300 on AT&T.

 

AJ

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milan03 Member Level: eHRPD

milan03

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Reconfigured WCS 2300 MHz licenses are 5 MHz FDD.  But the A and B blocks are adjacent, so they can be used together for 10 MHz FDD, much as AT&T uses the Lower 700 MHz B and C blocks for 10 MHz FDD.  No carrier aggregation necessary.

 

Oh, and band 2 LTE 1900 will come before band 30 LTE 2300 on AT&T.

 

AJ

Exactly, WCS needs to be codified before they even think of deploying it, although I'm sure ALU and Ericsson are all ready for it. But in the near future (aka 2014) they could theoretically refarm PCS at the expense of HSPA, which imho wouldn't be the smoothest user experience, especially in many markets where they still struggle with dropped calls. 

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WiWavelength Member Level: LTE Advanced

WiWavelength

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Why do they have spectrum that is useless to them?

It was useful for iDEN but little else. What more do you need to know?

 

AJ

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