
Why voice calls on 4g may suck at first - AndrewDucker
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/10/02/feature_wtf_is_voice_over_lte_4g/
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jevinskie
I wonder how efficient VoLTE will be. I love the idea that my carrier is just
a dumb pipe that I use to make VoIP calls with whatever service I desire but
from what I have heard that may be a poor engineering decision. I remember a
Qualcomm (its their baseband chip in the iPhone 4S and 5) engineer state that
there have been decades of research into getting the highest # of calls and
best call quality per Hz of OTA bandwidth. The engineer went on to say that
operating at a packet level is too high of an abstraction if you want to
squeeze the most out of the cell network. He stated that you must drop down
into lower, more niche/optimized layers to really match the efficiency that
they already have achieved on GSM/CDMA voice.

~~~
cliff
Your're probably right, but maybe it doesn't matter? Voice traffic is a
diminishing percentage of overall cellular traffic. LTE optimizes for the
increasing majority of traffic - data.

There are extra advantages to LTE -- for example, T-Mobile is using it to make
it so that you can seamlessly handover phone calls between cell towers and
wifi access points (using IMS, not VoLTE). Previously this was only possible
via complex technology embedded in the phone's baseband (UMA).

More calls routed over wifi means less cell utilization.

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lucaspiller
> Network operators might not care about that if voice didn't contribute so
> much to the money they make off each user. There may well come a time when
> their revenue will come solely from data traffic. At that point, the
> networks shouldn't care whether voice is handled by their app, Skype's or
> another - it's all just data, after all.

I would actually be quite happy if this came to be true. Both mobile and at
home the main use of my service is data, but both come bundled with a voice
plan that I don't use. Heck we don't even have the phone plugged in at home as
it isn't used. I would happily get a data only plan if one was available at a
good rate.

~~~
pixelcort
If you live in the US it might be a good idea to have a telephone plugged into
your landline anyways. This way if there's a combined electrical failure and
cell phone failure, you'll still be able to make 911 calls. There is also a
reverse 911 conference call system that works with landline phones.

At least in California, if you're renting, your landlord is required to
provide you with a working telephone line. You and them don't even need to pay
anything, just make sure there's a working dial tone.

Related: [http://www.opb.org/news/article/few-receiving-
reverse-911-ca...](http://www.opb.org/news/article/few-receiving-
reverse-911-calls-cell-phones/)

~~~
count
I love the pervasive myth that you don't need electricity to use a landline
phone in 2012. You're more likely to have a working cell phone (generator @
the tower) than a working phone line in an area with FTTH (say, Verizon FIOS
deployments, or cable co. VOIP deployments). Sure, the PON and gear has a
battery backup, but it doesn't last anywhere near as long as the generator at
the cell tower, or the battery in my cellphone.

~~~
pixelcort
In the Bay Area, I think most homes still have POTS lines. I wasn't aware most
lines weren't already. Where are POTS lines no longer available?

~~~
count
By law, they're available everywhere if you specifically request them.

Verizon, when they install FIOS, will rip out the copper, by default. If you
switch to another CLEC at a later date, you (or they) will have to pay to have
copper put back in. You can request Verizon not remove the copper though, but
you have to be aware of the need beforehand.

------
revelation
The main concern seems to be

 _Will they accept a lesser experience than they're used to?_

And quite frankly, of course they will. Thats the beauty in having a monopoly
on cell phone coverage.

~~~
com
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Even in the US there are multiple
carriers active in every market, and I assume that 3G is competing against LTE
as products _for the same provider, in the same market_. That should mean that
LTE subscribers might turn off their LTE to get better call-connect speed, or
simply choose a 3G subscription if that functions adequately enough for their
general data needs.

That might mean that the big problem will be to convince people to jump to LTE
(and the higher price) with slightly worse end-user voice experience. Some
customers will, but perhaps many won't. Artificial quality degradation of 3G
might be the answer for that, or limiting the 3G-only contract data limits to
encourage LTE adoption.

~~~
sneak
In Germany (the largest economy in the EU, and a population of 80M people)
there is exactly ONE (1) carrier whose LTE works with iPhone 5.

There are zero (0) that work with the LTE chip/frequencies in the new iPad.

~~~
cynicalkane
Being the first mover is not the same as being a monopoly.

~~~
sneak
There are two other LTE networks here. iPhone 5 only supports one of them due
to the frequencies in use. :(

------
abstractx
VoLTE doesn't even make sense to use from a network provider's perspective. 3g
architecture already exists and isn't going anywhere soon while people still
have 3G phones. Calls generally aren't made over 3G to this day, they're made
over 2G. Since frequency spectrum is so expensive and limited, packet sizes
need to be as small as possible...so unless they can fit more people on an LTE
voice channel compared to a 3G voice channel, the networks aren't going to be
jumping to use VoLTE. LTE should be focused on data for right now, and keep 3G
for voice. When was the last time someone said, "Gee, I wish my call was
faster!" anyways?

The point that keeping the phone in 3G for voice and LTE for data will drain
your battery doesn't make sense to me. Keep the phone in a 3G state for SMS,
voice, and push notification type data interactions, and when data is used,
then it would utilize LTE. That would actually SAVE battery life, since as the
article states, LTE is a battery hog.

~~~
kristofferR
It's not about the speed of the call (from the consumers point of view), it's
about the audio quality. Higher bandwidth will enable vastly improved audio
quality.

People may not say "Gee, I wish my call was faster!", but they sure say "Gee,
can you speak clearer?"/"Gee, I can't understand you" thousands of times every
day due to muddy/compressed call quality due to the compressed nature of our
current cell phone calling infrastructure. Apple made a big deal about the so-
called HD Audio capabilities of the iPhone 5, which is still below FM (and
VoLTE quality).

And while LTE may be a battery hog right now since it's so new, don't forget
that 3G was way worse when it was new. Battery consumption on LTE will improve
drastically quite fast. In a year or two it probably won't use much more
battery than 3G does.

~~~
pja
It's always been vaguely surprising to me that Apple hasn't used the iPhone
platform to force the carriers to upgrade the voice quality. It's exactly the
kind of thing that would cement the iPhone brand as the high-quality,
aspirational choice.

Either Apple decided it wasn't worth the effort, or the carriers flatly
refused I guess.

~~~
yaantc
It's not in Apple (or any phone maker) control today. With current technology
you pipe 8 kHz voice to the wireless modem and the encoding is done there,
following strictly defined cellular standards. So it's in the operator
control.

~~~
apendleton
Apple has extra leverage, though, because of its perceived importance in the
market. Look at visual voicemail: Apple decided IVR voicemail sucked, and
worked its way through carriers until it could find one that would support
changing its voicemail architecture. That carrier then turned both the iPhone
and that feature into a competitive advantage.

If Apple really wanted to, it seems like they could have strong-armed their
way into some higher-quality audio standard -- earlier deployment of VoLTE if
nothing else, since that's going to happen eventually anyway. That said, I'm
not especially surprised that they didn't; Apple has historically actually
been pretty timid with wireless technology, and the biggest bafflingly absent
feature of the original iPhone was that it didn't include a 3G radio even
though 3G was already widely deployed.

~~~
otterley
There are limits to Apple's leverage in the mobile marketplace. When the
original iPhone was introduced, they got AT&T to implement Visual Voicemail
and ship the phone without a carrier branding logo, but not much else. They
couldn't even get AT&T to agree to ship the phones without a subsidy lock,
despite the fact that there was no subsidy for the first few months (nor could
you legitimately unlock an iPhone associated with AT&T _ever_ until earlier
this year).

At this point, analysts and investors expect Apple to ship over 5 million
iPhones in the first weekend of availability. Resistance by a single carrier
(there are 3 now, and that's just in the USA) will seriously impact that
number. Moreover, carriers have other serious challengers at their disposal
and are pushing them hard (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S3).

Asking a carrier to promote a phone is one thing. Demanding they overhaul
their entire network is probably asking too much.

------
Aardwolf
So if I understand this correctly, 4G, despite having higher bandwidth,
results in either bad voice quality, or a 2-4 second delay? Voice quality over
the phone has been good for a 100 years, and now they can't match it with a
higher bandwidth? Back to the drawing board I say!

~~~
kristofferR
Voice quality has never been good on cellphones, it's actually far below even
so called FM-quality, which is far below CD-quality. The microphones are
capable of recording voice in a much better voice quality than what is
currently transferred through the networks. Phone audio is normally extremely
compressed. So called HD Audio, audio with a wider bandwidth, was actually
touted as great new iPhone 5 feature, since we've all noticed that the audio
quality of cell phones calls are horrible compared to the real voice or even
audio recordings made by the same microphones.

VoLTE is a new technology and isn't totally ready yet, but when it is it'll
enable vastly improved call quality.

[http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/24/fraunhofer-full-hd-
voice-...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/24/fraunhofer-full-hd-voice-for-
volte/)

~~~
yardie
Voice quality used to be very good on mobile. My first CDMA phone was
indistinguishable from a landline, with some people surprised I was right
outside their door when I called. And it was a big selling point in the early
mobile analog to digital transition. My first cellphone was from Primeco PCS
who made had no qualms about saying that TDMA (the competing standard at the
time) sounded like shit compared to their CDMA phones.

As all good things eventually end Primeco was sliced up into Verizon Wireless
and Sprint. With the only competing tech being TDMA from ATT Wireless they
compressed the voice channel even more to accomodate more customers.

TL;DR: CDMA audio, currently, is almost indistinguishable from landlines but
the carriers choose compression over quality

~~~
plorkyeran
"Indistinguishable from a a landline" is a pretty low standard. Landlines have
_terrible_ quality compared to nearly every VoIP system I've used.

~~~
apendleton
Yes, was about to respond and say exactly this. The frequency response is
something like 300-3500Hz (vs. 20Hz to 20kHz for normal human hearing), and
the dynamic range is also pretty mediocre. Skype is much better, and many in-
network cell calls that never touch POTS also have better call quality already
than landline phones do.

------
dkhenry
I think this is really a case of someone looking at a emerging technology and
saying well its not going to be good because it isn't good _now_. In America
the time frame where we even start to think about VoLTE is middle to end of
next year , and there are hundreds of engineers from a dozen companies working
on making it better. From a technical standpoint there is no reason why it
would be worse, in fact all the technical reasons point to it being better
once we figure out the implementation. This is like saying PC gaming is going
to suck because General Custards Revenge sucked.

------
liotier
I confirm the two to four seconds delay in experimental deployments. When I
first saw the proposed architecture, I couldn't believe it - kludge was the
first word to spring to my mind. All that while the deployment of IMS
platforms is gathering steam... Why can't IMS become the voice carrier ? SIP
everywhere and no more circuit switching... What's wrong with that ? NIH ?

~~~
seiji
Another "why can't they do this already" technology that impacts millions of
people every day: seamless GSM to wifi (and back) handoff. They had specs,
prototypes, and demos back in 2004. It never went anywhere. Is it just because
"they" wanted to overcharge for microcell hardware and tack on monthly fees?

Imagine being on a call outside, walking inside, through an elevator, and up
to your room/office/flat/apartment and not have the call disconnect. No GSM
repeaters in the loop. Your call went from AT&T->Wifi VoIP automatically and
it'll switch back to GSM when you leave wireless range again.

~~~
liotier
Handover between GSM/UMTS and Wifi works in the wild... But there is more to
market acceptance than just having a perfectly fine technical solution :
[http://www.kineto.com/wi-ficellular-handover-the-state-of-
th...](http://www.kineto.com/wi-ficellular-handover-the-state-of-the-market/)

------
ksec
So say, every Android and iPhone Devices, and may be Windows Phone 8 will come
with a default hidden VoIP inside, if it is collected using LTE it will use
that instead, the data would then be discounted over in the Mobile Network.
This to act as a temp solution until VoLTE comes.

Like Jeremy Clarkson in Top Gear, How hard can it be?

The article also fails to mention why VoLTE is hard and takes so long. It said
many different network operator has many different implementations. And even
if that is true there is only a handful of network provider these days that
network operator uses, Errisson, Nokia-Simens, ZTE, Huawei, and i dont know
who else. ( Samsung?? ) They had to test again 3 others. Again how hard could
that be?

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josh2600
Here's the punchline that most of the writers in the industry don't discuss.

IMS is an interoperability standard, but everyone implements their own
version. The original intention of IMS was to provide a method of dealing with
non-IP systems as IP (Particularly SS7 related functionality). The issue is
that SS7 was the last pre-divestiture routing system (thus it was the last
ubiquitous standard), and there can be no consensus in the industry anymore
with respect to standardization.

So why no VoLTE? Because there isn't a standard that everyone is willing to
implement, and there probably never will be. IMS is different everywhere you
go.

------
zurn
The telco world tried to do deploy IMS already in the 3G era but couldn't get
it working due to complexity, now they rely on it for voice in 4G .. resulting
in no voice service?

