Qualcomm and Ericsson claim to have validated one of the most important aspects in voice over LTE (VoLTE) to 3G handoff.
The pair has completed handover of a call using the 3GPP specified single radio voice call continuity (SRVCC) standard, which they state is the first time the crucial specification has been applied. The test utilized Ericsson network gear, and a handset powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.
“[T]he ability for multimode 3G/LTE mobile devices to connect to different network technologies will be [increasingly] important,” Cristiano Amon, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm notes, referring to the expectation that carriers will run 3G and LTE networks in tandem.
Qualcomm and Ericsson plan to demonstrate the call switching at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which commences on February 27.
The milestone follows the commercial launch in 2011 of circuit-switched fallback (CSFB), a method of a single radio to switch from an LTE connection to a 3G connection when calls are made or received.
But despite the technological progress being made, many operators attending September's LTE Asia appeared in no hurry to deploy voice over their respective LTE networks, indicating a preference to wait until LTE is more ubiquitous.