Global Telecoms Set LTE Standard for Voice, SMS

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.