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MOVING FROM DELAY TO DEPLOY VoLTE Slow progress in the deployment of VoLTE has many in the industry confused, or convinced the technology will not ever be widely deployed. You'd think VoLTE would be a simple tick for operators. As soon as operators have the spectrum available and free, they are going to roll out LTE. The reasons for that are now clear. LTE gives operators greater operational and spectral efficiency, it gives their users a far greater mobile broadband experience, leading to a significant rise in data usage. In many cases this translates to the ability to sell more data packages at premium prices. So where there are hundreds of LTE networks live, you'd also think that there would be a similar rush to support operators' key revenue-generating services - voice and messaging - across those LTE networks. And yet there are not. The Global mobile Suppliers Association says that of the 268 live LTE networks in 100 countries, just a handful have so far deployed VoLTE. Voice and messaging have undoubtedly been diminishing revenue lines for some operators in mature markets, but those revenues still make up a significant, usually more than 60%, proportion of overall revenues. More importantly, reliable and high quality voice is a hygiene factor for mobile operators in terms of customer experience. Dropped calls, long set- up times and poor quality audio are all consumer turn-offs. Given that the VoLTE standard is now three years old, it is odd A TMN EBOOK: VOLTE - MOVING FROM DELAY TO DEPLOY

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