Deutsche Telekom has today announced the world's first voice call over LTE with speech quality based on VoLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic Access) technology and two independent test environments.
Calls have been made between a test system, installed at Deutsche Telekom Headquarters in Bonn, Germany which is based on a VoLGA implementation of Kineto Wireless and a second totally independent system from Alcatel-Lucent, installed in its test center in Stuttgart, Germany. Both VoLGA-based Voice over LTE systems support inbound and outbound voice calling and SMS messaging between LTE-enabled devices and standard mobile and fixed telephones.
"Voice calling is an essential service for mobile operators. This demonstration is a key milestone towards establishing a future proof eco system and shows a cost efficient way for using voice over LTE", stated Uwe Janssen, Senior Vice President of Core Networks. "The VoLGA test shows how operators could quickly and easily provide next generation voice services, re-using their existing core networks. At the same time this serves as a first step to prepare networks for the industry-agreed mid- and long-term solution for voice over LTE that will be based on IMS."