mattbush: Isnt it like HD voice?

Technofreak:

Geektastic:

cisconz: Voice over LTE (4G)

Ah. I looked that up as I didn't really know what that was either. Apparently it is 

"VoLTE, an acronym for Voice over LTE, which is based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network, with specific profiles for control and media planes of voice service on LTE defined by GSMA in PRD IR.92.[1] This approach results in the voice service (control and media planes) being delivered as data flows within the LTE data bearer. This means that there is no dependency on (or ultimately, requirement for) the legacy circuit-switched voice network to be maintained. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than 3G UMTS and up to six times more than 2G GSM. Furthermore, it frees up bandwidth because VoLTE’s packets headers are smaller than those of unoptimized VoIP/LTE."

So having looked it up, I am none the wiser but have decided it is 'newer' and therefore intended to be 'better'!

Makes perfect sense to me.  Well I think it does. 

Crudely it means a service similar to VOIP (like Skype) where the voice or audio of the phone call and any signalling or control signals are sent over a data circuit (bearer) the same as for any data on that device. POTS and non LTE phone services have a voice circuit and if the device has data service a separate data circuit.  In the case of landline broadband the data and the voice signal share the same wires but are effectively two separate services. You don't need one to have the other.

POTS and 3G services need a switch (telephone exchange) to route the calls from the caller to the recipient, with VoLTE the is no need for a dedicated switch. With VoLTE like VOIP the switching is done within the internet using IP addresses

With LTE voice and data are effectively combined, though I think currently LTE (4G) is only being used for data and 3G is still used for voice but in the future voice will be combined into the LTE (4G) signal.

Geektastic: 

Thanks - that makes more sense! 

So, if it is like Slype, will it keep randomly dropping out, slowing down, making you sound like a Dalek etc the same as Skype does?! ;-)

Technofreak:

Geektastic: 

Thanks - that makes more sense! 

So, if it is like Slype, will it keep randomly dropping out, slowing down, making you sound like a Dalek etc the same as Skype does?! ;-)

No, The reason Skype does that is because of bandwidth issues. Parts of the network were never designed with services like Skype in mind. Whereas LTE has been developed for this type of service from the ground up.

coffeebaron: VoLTE was tested on Vodafone recently, so possibly not too far away; though Vodafone are rather busy racing Spark rolling out 4G everywhere.

Geektastic:

coffeebaron: VoLTE was tested on Vodafone recently, so possibly not too far away; though Vodafone are rather busy racing Spark rolling out 4G everywhere.

Who's winning? No 4G here in Martinborough yet!☺