Wednesday, July 9, 2014

How Important is VoLTE?

It is perhaps contentious to ask how important voice Over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) will be, as similar questions might be raised about high-definition voice or Rich Communications Service.

Telekom Austria CTO Gunther Ottendorfer has said "We shouldn't overhype and over-promise."
There are operational issues of some importance, such as how to handle voice if 3G bandwidth is repurposed as 4G bandwidth, for example.

And RCS, high-definition voice and VoLTE are believed to be important to protect the future voice revenue stream.

Just how important any of those developments might be sort of depends on the strategy any service provider adopts toward voice revenue streams overall.

Some believe the best way forward is to enhance value, to maintain differentiation with other independent and over-the-top alternatives.

Others might argue that harvesting revenue makes more sense, while concentrating development efforts and capital on creating brand-new revenue sources.

It is possible nobody will know for sure for some time, as VoLTE deployments are only beginning. But one issue remains: most carrier voice efforts try to make carrier voice "more like" over the top alternatives.

Whether that will pay off is the issue.

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