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T-Mobile, major vendors back new LTE voice approach
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T-Mobile International and major handset and equipment vendors are joining forces to promote a new approach to delivering voice service over Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
The group, which will formally launch its plans March 9, is called the VoLGA Forum, according to a report in Unstrung. VoLGA stands for Voice over LTE via Generic Access. Some of the wireless industry's biggest vendors are founding members of the group, including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung, Starent and ZTE.
Since LTE is a packet-based network that will not support traditional circuit-switched telephony, the aim of the group is to provide a common set of standards to bring circuit-switched voice services to LTE networks using a generic access approach. Many operators, though they have expressed a desire to eventually migrate to LTE as a 4G standard, have yet to commit to specifics over how they would continue traditional telephony using LTE technology. The VoLGA approach will compete with IMS and VoIP as possible solutions to the problem.
For more:
- see this article
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous | March 5, 2009 - 3:21pm
Okay, am I missing something? Isn't this going backward? Why isn't mobile VoIP a more viable solution?
Posted by Anonymous | March 5, 2009 - 5:05pm
t-mobile is accepting that there is no innovation in voice services with LTE, unless it can be also done with 2G. Clearly they think IMS is useless and so because they do not have the balls to experiment and find out what can be done with it, they will just use CS.
Maybe they should see the new verizon device available in malls across US. No panacea, but at least an attempt to innovate using capabilities around VoIP. VOIP+mobile is a powerful combination. But no.
With this approach, Most likely the services will migrate to the PS domain (over the top) and then these guys run for regulatory cover and blame Google.
Posted by Anonymous | March 5, 2009 - 5:58pm
They "will just use CS"?? LTE does not support CS links. I wonder how VoLGA differs from IMS/SIP? Since Ericsson has a huge investment in IMS, I doubt they would back a competing approach. I'm *clearly* missing something here.
Posted by Anonymous | March 6, 2009 - 12:39pm
Absolutely there is no innovation for enduser voice services when it comes to IMS, and T-Mobile has this one exactly right, except those industry lemmings that have backed for IMS for years won't admit it and are going to oppose this. The interesting applications today have NOTHING to do with IMS or can be built without an IMS infrastructure, and when you think of IMS, think walled garden (aka prison). The operators have given us such excellent applications as we all know and IMS will make that so much better??? (barf)
If you take a look even at the basic diagram on the VOLGA site, www.volga-forum.com, the technology is based on GAN, which is clearly VoIP, but reuses the CS core. 90% of the subscribers won't care whether the core of the network is IMS, CS, or whatever when it comes to voice. This approach is more about deferring the massive back end costs of going to IMS, and there is nothing that says IMS won't coexist or other application strategies are incompatible.
This will clearly be VoIP plus any other packet applications will just co-reside. Take a look at things like CSI (combinatorial services) sometime.
For those that are standards geeks, go to www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/html-info/23879.htm and take a look at draft 1.2.0--it's all there as "alternative 2".
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