SK Telesys, the wireless system manufacturer of SK Group Korea, is integrating voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) into its small cell base stations using the Mindspeed Transcede 3000 system on a chip (SoC).
The Mindspeed SoC features softwear was developed by Mindspeed and its partner Radisys and meets 3GPP Release 9 Home eNodeB specifications, including support for self-organizing network features (SON). "We see VoLTE as a critical component of small cells as they become widely adopted," said Naser Adas, vice president and general manager of the wireless business unit at Mindspeed.
"VoLTE is an important component of the LTE small cell deployments that we're engaged in with our customers in Korea. Our customers expect small cells to be a natural extension of their macrocell network and include support for the same services, regardless of what layer of the radio access network (RAN) a user is connected to. By working with Radisys and Mindspeed, we have been able to deliver VoLTE service with the performance and quality consistent with the macro network," said Il-Hyun Sohn, director of research and development at SK Telesys.
While VoLTE was deployed by a handful of carriers this year, most LTE deployments still use legacy network solutions such as Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) for enabling voice connectivity. But that approach has various drawbacks, including low battery life and network inefficiencies, said Mindspeed and Radisys.
VoLTE voice calls, on the other hand, can have guaranteed bandwidth and quality of service and enable HD voice, which uses wider bandwidths and better quality codecs to deliver clearer calls than traditional cellular or even landline voice, the companies said.
However, VoLTE does have some issues. A recent study by Metrico Wireless, which was acquired by Spirent Communications in September, showed that VoLTE calls can slash a device's talk-time battery life by half.
For more:
- see this Mindspeed and Radisys release
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