Vodafone Australia will begin rolling out voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) commercially in December, it has confirmed, initially to post-paid customers using ‘select capable devices’. Subscribers with the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge + and Note 5 handsets will be the first to benefit, subject to updating their phones. Vodafone Australia’s chief technology officer Benoit Hanssen said that the VoLTE service will include features such as video calling, while also providing an ‘enhanced call experience’ including shorter call set up times and longer battery life on some smartphones. With the technology deployment to be extended to more post-paid, as well as pre-paid, customers in 2016, Mr Hanssen noted: ‘We expect the number of customers with VoLTE-capable devices to increase rapidly over the next few years as more smartphone manufacturers incorporate the feature into new models.’
With regards to the technology underpinning the VoLTE rollout, the executive added: ‘VoLTE means enhanced spectral efficiency with 2.3 times more users per MHz. It will also support the refarming of our spectrum from 3G to 4G so that we can continue to provide great data speeds as traffic grows.’