VoLTE and the IMTC

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Image by Richard.Asia via Flickr

One of the important aspects of an open standard is the ability to rigorously test it for interoperability. And then when you’re done testing – test yet again. It is an ongoing process that never seem to end.

Take our 3G-324M AG at the IMTC – I’ve been an active participant of this group from its inception, and that was over 5 years ago. And this year, the 3G-324M AG is going to have some more testing done – it seems like there is no rest for engineers.

So now that the GSMA has decided to go full force and work on the VoLTE specification so that operators can start rolling out all-IP mobile networks and still provide the basic services they do today, there was a missing piece in the puzzle – they have the ecosystem, but not real place to use for interoperability testing amongst the vendors implementing VoLTE.

That’s exactly where the IMTC comes into the picture [Read more...]

About the writer: Tsahi Levent-Levi

A Short Introduction to VoLTE

Red London Phone Boxes
Image by markhillary via Flickr

A few years ago, when it seemed apparent that all communications are moving to an IP based world, mobile operators had to decide on the standard to use in their all-IP world. SIP was selected for that purpose as the base protocol, with a lot of additional protocols taking part to comprise the whole network. The end result (which is an ongoing standardization effort) is IMS – the IP Multimedia Subsystem.
IMS was adopted by all other incumbent service providers – wireline, wireless and cable, which in a way made sure of continuity of service, interoperability and roaming between operators. Fun as it is, the problem with IMS is its complexity: it comes to replace a hundred years of developments in voice technologies, and wrap into their future network advanced services such as rich multimedia and presence. [Read more...]

About the writer: Tsahi Levent-Levi