Telecom service provider (telecoms) Reliance Jio Infocomm will get six months extension for testing voice over LTE (VoLTE). Reliance Jio Infocomm’s 4G rival Bharti Airtel is also testing VoLTE in India.
Extension to test phone call services on 4G network is in line with the government’s initiative to allow companies to work on technology and provide better options to customers.
The 4G / LTE venture of billionaire Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries earlier received 10,000 numbers for testing VoLTE services. The permit would expire on July 16 (today).
Recently, Infonetics Research predicted that there will be 12 commercial VoLTE networks and 8 million VoLTE subscribers in 2013, with about three-quarters from in Asia Pacific. The Asian telecom market is seeing the success of SK Telecom’s VoLTE adoption — 3.6 million subscribers in April 2013.
Reliance Jio Infocomm initially requested for allocation of numbers in October last year for testing phone calls over 4G network in Delhi, Mumbai and Jamnagar. The numbers were allocated to it in April this year, PTI reported.
The pan India 4G operator, which is yet to launch service after getting license in 2010, has developed new VoLTE technology that would be able to connect call seamlessly across existing 2G, 3G, NLD and ILD networks in India.
Meanwhile, Infonetics Research says the biggest change coming over the next few years will be the rise of VoLTE and its impact on IMS. Over 90 percent of the operators participating in its IMS strategies survey plan to deploy VoLTE by 2015, up from zero today.
Key factors driving survey respondents’ migration to IMS are LTE network deployments and IMS’s reputation as a global standard for network infrastructure and services.
Last month, ZTE said it completed the world’s first end-to-end voice-over TD-LTE (VoTD-LTE) call in partnership with China Mobile and Marvell Technology Group.
The VoTD-LTE call was conducted on China Mobile’s network in Guangzhou, using 5-mode, 13-band smartphones powered by Marvell’s chipsets.
