Vodafone UK has announced that it has made the first successful Voice over LTE call at its specialist laboratory in Newbury, Berkshire.
Vodafone’s Head of Core Network, Ed Cowmeadow said in a blog post: “4G today only supports data, so when you make a call your phone connects via 3G or 2G by default. So Voice over 4G is us being able to carry voice traffic over our data network, rather than the radio network that normally carries them." He also indicated that VoLTE may provide users longer battery life compared to using conventional 3G calls.
The VoLTE trial is part of its ongoing innovations for the year, including deployment of small cell system at Huawei UK's headquaters. It uses Huawei’s Lampsite technology operating on Vodafone’s 2.6Ghz spectrum, providing in-building 4G data speeds of up to 82Mbps downlink and 42MBps uplink.
“We’ve been continually developing and investing heavily in our UK network since it launched nearly 30 years ago. Our trial of VoLTE, less than a year after the launch of our 4G network, is the next major innovation, and is hugely important as we continue our work to build the UK’s best network.”
- Fergal Kelly, CTO, Vodafone UK
