Stakeholders Join for LTE Profile
AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Ericsson have jointly developed a technical profile for LTE voice and SMS services, also known as the One Voice initiative. The profile defines an optimal set of existing 3GPP-specified functionalities that all industry stakeholders, including network vendors, service providers and handset manufacturers, can use to offer compatible LTE voice solutions.
The stakeholders have concluded that IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), 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 wireline 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, ensuring subscribers continuity of these services – while offering service providers a well-defined path to LTE.
The objective of the initiative is to ensure the widest possible ecosystem for LTE and to avoid fragmentation of technical solutions. The profile for the initial solution has been finalized and is available through the participating companies.