Long Term Evolution leaders AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone and Nokia joined
eight other equipment vendors and device manufacturers Nov. 4 to announce a
jointly developed technical profile for LTE voice and Short Message Service
services. The companies said they hope the technical profile will pave the way
for a "smooth introduction and delivery of voice and SMS services" for
the companies' transition to 4G services.
The other companies involved in the development of the technical profile were Orange,
Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks,
Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson.
Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are the only two U.S.
carriers betting on WiMax to deliver 4G wireless broadband. Both WiMax and LTE
allow for the delivery of last-mile wireless broadband access, promising faster
download speeds than current cellular networks.
The LTE backers, through "open collaborative discussions," have "concluded
that the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based solution, as defined by 3GPP, is
the most applicable approach to meeting the consumers' expectations for service
quality, reliability and availability when moving from existing circuit
switched telephony services to IP-based LTE services. This approach will also
open the path to service convergence, as IMS is able to simultaneously serve
broadband wire-line and LTE wireless networks.
"By following the jointly defined technical profile, the industry can
help guarantee international roaming and interoperability for LTE voice and SMS
services ... while offering service providers a smooth and well-defined path to
LTE," the news release continued. The standard will allow network
operators to "more quickly develop their customized LTE ecosystem in
collaboration with both network equipment vendors and device
manufacturers," the companies said.
The technical profile is available at http://news.vzw.com/OneVoiceProfile.pdf.
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