VoLTE timeline

[linhpham2]

"Sprint will rely on its CDMA network and HD Voice technology for voice calling services for the foreseeable future, said Sprint Chief Network Officer John Saw. Saw said Sprint is investing in Voice over LTE technology, but doesn't have a timeline for deploying the service. "I think there's a lot of talk about VoLTE, but not very many people have rolled it out in a scale that you would need to sustain a good voice service," Saw said. "I think we continue to explore the opportunities of VoLTE, and I need to make sure that I have a big enough footprint with LTE before we can even roll it out. But we have been doing some tests and working with our vendors to explore the capabilities of VoLTE. So we are investing in it, but we really don't have a timeline for rollout."

 

Read more: Sprint's network chief isn't rushing to deploy VoLTE - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprints-network-chief-isnt-rushing-deploy-volte/2014-03-25#ixzz2x55gAtpJ 
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Edited March 26, 2014 by linhpham2

[clbowens]

 

"Sprint will rely on its CDMA network and HD Voice technology for voice calling services for the foreseeable future, said Sprint Chief Network Officer John Saw. Saw said Sprint is investing in Voice over LTE technology, but doesn't have a timeline for deploying the service. "I think there's a lot of talk about VoLTE, but not very many people have rolled it out in a scale that you would need to sustain a good voice service," Saw said. "I think we continue to explore the opportunities of VoLTE, and I need to make sure that I have a big enough footprint with LTE before we can even roll it out. But we have been doing some tests and working with our vendors to explore the capabilities of VoLTE. So we are investing in it, but we really don't have a timeline for rollout."

 

Read more: Sprint's network chief isn't rushing to deploy VoLTE - FierceWireless http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/sprints-network-chief-isnt-rushing-deploy-volte/2014-03-25#ixzz2x55gAtpJ 

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AKA, no time soon.  :-)

[burnout8488]

With HD Voice deployed nationwide around July, I don't think anyone is going to be wishing for anything more for a very long time. 1x800 is proving to be a beast of a band, and HD Voice quality is excellent. I guess I just don't see any need for VoLTE right now on Sprint, or even in the near future. Their lack of a timeframe makes sense.

[CaptainSlow]

In terms of capacity, VoLTE has a lot of catching up to do with just good ol' CDMA, let alone CDMA+1xAdvanced. It's no surprise then that Sprint doesn't seem to be in any hurry to deploy VoLTE just for the sake of it.

[S4GRU]

The only usefulness to VoLTE in the a short term is to reduce the number of PCS 1x carriers to allow another PCS LTE carrier in some areas that may be just slightly short on spectrum to do another LTE carrier in PCS. But this is not a high priority.

 

Sprint is in a good position to ride out voice on CDMA for a long time. The big advantage of VoLTE in the log run will be able to have LTE Only devices which should make a play for full North American interoperability between providers easier to implement. Of course, the big disadvantage to VoLTE is coverage because of the more fragile airlink of LTE. CDMA on 800MHz will sure be tough to beat!

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

[joshnys8913]

The only usefulness to VoLTE in the a short term is to reduce the number of PCS 1x carriers to allow another PCS LTE carrier in some areas that may be just slightly short on spectrum to do another LTE carrier in PCS. But this is not a high priority.

 

Sprint is in a good position to ride out voice on CDMA for a long time. The big advantage of VoLTE in the log run will be able to have LTE Only devices which should make a play for full North American interoperability between providers easier to implement. Of course, the big disadvantage to VoLTE is coverage because of the more fragile airlink of LTE. CDMA on 800MHz will sure be tough to beat!

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

I could of sworn VoLTE is on 3G too? I have talked on the phone when I was just on a 3G only tower...

[S4GRU]

I could of sworn VoLTE is on 3G too? I have talked on the phone when I was just on a 3G only tower...

 

Ummmm...

 

Robert

[joshnys8913]

Ummmm...

 

Robert

what? Am I have another blonde moment? lol

[S4GRU]

what? Am I have another blonde moment? lol

 

VoLTE is Voice Over LTE.  So it cannot be over 3G by definition.  I think you may be confusing HD Voice with VoLTE.  HD Voice can be run over CDMA just fine.  LTE is not needed.

 

Robert

[joshnys8913]

VoLTE is Voice Over LTE.  So it cannot be over 3G by definition.  I think you may be confusing HD Voice with VoLTE.  HD Voice can be run over CDMA just fine.  LTE is not needed.

 

Robert

Your dead on right I was confused!!! My mistake, sorry about that! (Note to myself:    )

[Josh]

Even when sprint acquires some 600Mhz spectrum at the next auction (which is not guaranteed, but highly likely) the quality of the airlink will probably barely match CDMA on 800Mhz, but will be better than LTE on 800Mhz.  Even if they move the cities to VoLTE as a way to offload everyone from CDMA on PCS, they will probably have the CDMA 800 as a fallback for many years. 

[JWMaloney]

The only usefulness to VoLTE in the a short term is to reduce the number of PCS 1x carriers to allow another PCS LTE carrier in some areas that may be just slightly short on spectrum to do another LTE carrier in PCS. But this is not a high priority.

 

Sprint is in a good position to ride out voice on CDMA for a long time. The big advantage of VoLTE in the log run will be able to have LTE Only devices which should make a play for full North American interoperability between providers easier to implement. Of course, the big disadvantage to VoLTE is coverage because of the more fragile airlink of LTE. CDMA on 800MHz will sure be tough to beat!

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

I would hope they would at least throw up a 1.4 MHz LTE carrier to be used exclusively for VoLTE. The tower could push you onto it when a call comes in. They could do that today and kill a voice carrier if they had devices to support it.

[S4GRU]

I would hope they would at least throw up a 1.4 MHz LTE carrier to be used exclusively for VoLTE. The tower could push you onto it when a call comes in. They could do that today and kill a voice carrier if they had devices to support it.

 

I know a lot of the early Sprint LTE devices did not support 1.4MHz LTE channels.  Seems like most of the newer ones do, though.  Since Triband device adoption was still under 5%, I'm not sure a 1.4MHz VoLTE only carrier would alleviate much traffic yet.  And I'm not familiar enough with VoLTE to know if you can easily modify existing LTE devices with just a software update to get it to work.  I would guess not, and then we would need VoLTE ready handsets to get on the market for Sprint.

 

But I do agree with your point though, this will become more and more of an option every month as the number of Sprint devices that support VoLTE in 1.4MHz channels are out there.

 

Robert

[JWMaloney]

I know a lot of the early Sprint LTE devices did not support 1.4MHz LTE channels. Seems like most of the newer ones do, though. Since Triband device adoption was still under 5%, I'm not sure a 1.4MHz VoLTE only carrier would alleviate much traffic yet. And I'm not familiar enough with VoLTE to know if you can easily modify existing LTE devices with just a software update to get it to work. I would guess not, and then we would need VoLTE ready handsets to get on the market for Sprint.

 

But I do agree with your point though, this will become more and more of an option every month as the number of Sprint devices that support VoLTE in 1.4MHz channels are out there.

 

Robert

I would think that the only devices to possibly receive a VoLTE update would be the ones that received Wi-Fi calling. I think all of those would support a small carrier. I don't know how they're going to QoS it properly otherwise. I've seen a lot of sites where the air link itself is over capacity and the tower can't do anything about it.

[Thomas L.]

Sprint is playing it smart with VoLTE - the reality is it isn't a technology that's fully reached maturity at this point, and there are a lot of other carriers (KT in South Korea, Softbank even in Japan) that are deploying that technology. That will allow Sprint to piggy back and use what they learn to make their own roll out a bit smoother. At the same time, I wouldn't take anything re: network operations that Sprint says right now as gospel, with all of the people leaving and with Son's management style, for all we know this might just become a priority again in a few months

[S4GRU]

I wouldn't take anything re: network operations that Sprint says right now as gospel, with all of the people leaving and with Son's management style, for all we know this might just become a priority again in a few months

Agreed. All things we knew in the past as definite plans are all back up for negotiation.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

 

 

[Josh]

From what I have read, the problem is mainly spectral efficiency... A 1.25x1.25Mhz wide CDMA carrier can handle more simultaneous calls than a 1.4x1.4Mhz LTE carrier can, and we have the other problem that the airlink is not as usable at the same distance compared to CDMA... meaning they will need spectrum that can provide coverage if they ever fully want to go to full VoLTE ever in the future.  

 

It does not mean that they will never use VoLTE, just that if I was sprint, I would always keep phones that have the capability of CDMA voice, even if it primarily used VoLTE and the CDMA was only for rural coverage/ or bunker-like buildings. 

 

I will say that once we do go to a primarily LTE network, the benefit of VoLTE is that when people aren't talking on the phone... all the spectral assets can be used to deliver data.   

 

The key point is that customers do not care how voice is transferred, as long as it works well and everywhere they are with no dropped calls.  People are talking less on the phone anyway, so they will probably be able to get away with fewer CDMA carriers anyway and devoting more spectral assets toward LTE as the current NV plans near completion.  I will be interested to see when this will be announced, as I think it will only be a marketing scheme. 

[mozamcrew]

From what I have read, the problem is mainly spectral efficiency... A 1.25x1.25Mhz wide CDMA carrier can handle more simultaneous calls than a 1.4x1.4Mhz LTE carrier can, and we have the other problem that the airlink is not as usable at the same distance compared to CDMA... meaning they will need spectrum that can provide coverage if they ever fully want to go to full VoLTE ever in the future.  

 

It does not mean that they will never use VoLTE, just that if I was sprint, I would always keep phones that have the capability of CDMA voice, even if it primarily used VoLTE and the CDMA was only for rural coverage/ or bunker-like buildings. 

 

I will say that once we do go to a primarily LTE network, the benefit of VoLTE is that when people aren't talking on the phone... all the spectral assets can be used to deliver data.   

 

The key point is that customers do not care how voice is transferred, as long as it works well and everywhere they are with no dropped calls.  People are talking less on the phone anyway, so they will probably be able to get away with fewer CDMA carriers anyway and devoting more spectral assets toward LTE as the current NV plans near completion.  I will be interested to see when this will be announced, as I think it will only be a marketing scheme. 

 

Given this, I think we will see EV-DO carriers reduced faster than CDMA 1x carriers. Once the bulk of data traffic moves to LTE (when bands 26 and 25 are both deployed on a site, I can see them going down to a single EV-DO carrier on a site just for fallback and older non-LTE phones/roaming.

[paulstejskal]

Actually there is a bigger need for VoLTE than you realize for Spark phones. They only have one radio unlike older LTE chips that have two for CDMA and data, so if you get a call, you drop from super fast Spark LTE to 1x and good luck getting data until you end the call.

[Josh]

Given this, I think we will see EV-DO carriers reduced faster than CDMA 1x carriers. Once the bulk of data traffic moves to LTE (when bands 26 and 25 are both deployed on a site, I can see them going down to a single EV-DO carrier on a site just for fallback and older non-LTE phones/roaming.

 

I would have to agree with you in principal, although I do not know how many EVDO carriers they currently have in every area, and it would probably depend on how many need to be re-purposed in order to add one more 5x5Mhz LTE carrier.  I think they usually have at least some excess spectrum in most markets, but I believe they will leave all 3G carriers on that are not necessary for adding the extra LTE carrier.  Don't forget that there are still a lot of 3G only phones, not just looking at sprint proper, but especially with their prepaid divisions and MNVO's. 

 

There are things that might help sprint re-purpose a CDMA PCS carrier; one is that there will have a new CDMA carrier in the 800Mhz band, while I heard that the new CDMA 1x-Advanced can handle more call volume than past CDMA equipment.  Both of these suggest that they should be able to re-purpose CDMA spectrum if needed, and still maintain the same quality of service. 

[Josh]

Actually there is a bigger need for VoLTE than you realize for Spark phones. They only have one radio unlike older LTE chips that have two for CDMA and data, so if you get a call, you drop from super fast Spark LTE to 1x and good luck getting data until you end the call.

 

Does anyone know if there will be simultaneous VoLTE and DATA?  If there is only one path, does it matter if that path is used for CDMA voice or LTE voice?  You will still only be able to do one thing at once. 

Edited March 27, 2014 by Josh

[mozamcrew]

Does anyone know if there will be simultaneous VoLTE and DATA?  If there is only one path, does it matter if that path is used for CDMA voice or LTE voice?  You will still only be able to do one thing at once. 

That's the whole point of VoLTE. Instead of having a path for voice and a path for data, they both travel over LTE. Right now Sprint is using 1x for voice and 1x, EV-DO, or LTE for data. So doing data and voice at the same time currently requires multple simultaneous tx/rx paths (since 1x can only do data OR voice at a time), which is costly and inefficient. VoLTE is really about moving from switched circuit voice over 1x to Voice over IP. When you do that, voice/phonecalls are just one more kind of data.

[jroepcke51]

Actually there is a bigger need for VoLTE than you realize for Spark phones. They only have one radio unlike older LTE chips that have two for CDMA and data, so if you get a call, you drop from super fast Spark LTE to 1x and good luck getting data until you end the call.

When you are on a call with a Spark phone, there is no data via cellular. One transmission path.

[Josh]

That's the whole point of VoLTE. Instead of having a path for voice and a path for data, they both travel over LTE. Right now Sprint is using 1x for voice and 1x, EV-DO, or LTE for data. So doing data and voice at the same time currently requires multple simultaneous tx/rx paths (since 1x can only do data OR voice at a time), which is costly and inefficient. VoLTE is really about moving from switched circuit voice over 1x to Voice over IP. When you do that, voice/phonecalls are just one more kind of data.

I guess what I was trying to ask was if the since data was already being used for the phone call, would you be able to also send other data at the same time, knowing that the call must be an uninterrupted data stream... You say it's just more data, but I was asking if someone knows technically if this is the case. And I already know about the separate paths for SvDO & SvLTE, and how the current generation of tri-band phones are using circuit switched fall back... which although it does not allow voice and data simultaneously, I am happy to heat that it picks up LTE much faster/easier and generally had better reception than last year's phones.

The SvLTE is not as important to me as having good coverage & quality of service.

[mozamcrew]

I guess what I was trying to ask was if the since data was already being used for the phone call, would you be able to also send other data at the same time, knowing that the call must be an uninterrupted data stream... You say it's just more data, but I was asking if someone knows technically if this is the case. 

 

I assume they will handle this similarly to current VoIP providers, by making sure the voice traffic has a higher priority on the network.  If other downloads have to wait a little to make sure calls are consistent, then that's what will happen. ANY real-time service should work that way.