Verizon and AT&T haven’t been known to play along with one another very much for many reasons, including the fact that they’re the two biggest carriers in the U.S. and because they use two different network technologies (CDMA vs GSM). When it comes to Voice over LTE (VoLTE), though, apparently VZW and ATT have decided to set aside their differences and work together.
Verizon says that it and AT&T plan to enable VoLTE-to-VoLTE connections between their customers. That means that Verizon customers will be able to call AT&T customers over LTE, resulting in higher-quality voice calling, and vice versa. Interoperable Voice over LTE is expected to arrive in 2015.
“Customers use their smartphones to connect with friends, family and colleagues across service providers and around the world. Interoperability among all VoLTE providers takes connectivity to the next level with HD quality voice and additional features that customers want,” said Verizon CTO Tony Melone. “We’re pleased to be working with AT&T as our first interoperating carrier, and we look forward to working with other operators as VoLTE continues to grow.”
While voice calling isn’t quite as huge as it used to be thanks to instant messaging and text messages, there are still a lot of people that make voice calls every day. VoLTE is the next big feature for voice calling, and before today’s announcement, it didn’t look like consumers would be able to use VoLTE to talk to people that aren’t on their carrier. Today’s announcement shows that that won’t be the case with Verizon and AT&T folk, though, and if these two can work out a VoLTE interoperability agreement, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other major U.S. carriers get on board soon, too.
Via Verizon Wireless