Vodacom (News - Alert), the largest mobile service carrier in South Africa, claims to have made the country's first successful voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) phone call. VoLTE uses the same process behind VoIP phone calling to make cheaper phone calls by sending them through the Internet as data instead of as analog wireless signals, but instead seek to utilize LTE (News - Alert) wireless Internet instead of having to be tethered by Wi-Fi. By successfully making a mobile VoLTE phone call in South Africa, Vodacom is looking forward into a bright future of cheaper and better phone service.
“VoLTE is a win-win technology,” according to Vodacom CTO Andries Delport, who goes on to state that “it's good for the consumer and for Vodacom. The implementation of the VoLTE infrastructure is the first step towards commercial implementation that will ultimately result in faster call set-up times, better voice quality and an overall improved quality of service.” By lowering prices, Vodacom will attract more customers and make more money in the long run, all while delivering better mobile phone service.
By using data packets to transmit phone calls, VoIP reduces the involved hardware and infrastructure to only a fraction of the cost. VoLTE allows smartphones to take advantage of this same concept to reduce mobile phone bills as well. By transforming phone calls into data, phone bills can shrink from having separate fees for calling, texting and Internet use into a single unified Data bill.
Additionally, switching from cellular to LTE transmission will make room in the skies for more data as the bandwidths are replaced. Because LTE data is so much more compact and efficient than cellular data, much more data can be stored in smaller wavelengths. Ultimately, this will lead to success for Vodacom and South Africa as phone operating costs are lowered while subscription fees will shortly follow suit.
Edited by Alisen Downey