Hello dear readers. For a long time I wanted to tell you about the features of VoLTE and Wi-Fi Calling (hereinafter WFC), as well as why such necessary functions are rarely found in smartphones. Let's start with VoLTE.
Who does VoLTE support depend on?
Several conditions are required for this feature to work correctly. Firstly, it must be supported by the smartphone's hardware, secondly, the operator must have its support, and thirdly, VoLTE settings must be written in the smartphone's firmware. The fact is that each operator has its own implementation of VoLTE, and its support requires individual settings in each case.
VoLTE settings and work are based on special IMS stacks, they can be either from the chipset manufacturer, or directly from the smartphone manufacturer. In the first case, it takes much more time for various approvals for each model, and if something does not work, you have to communicate with the American, European or Chinese division of Qualcomm to solve problems, as a result, the process can drag on for a long time.
If the manufacturer has its own IMS stack, then the situation is greatly simplified, it is enough to know that the hardware and the operator support the service and you can add individual operator settings.
After that, the company's testers take test smartphones with test SIM cards and start running them in standard use cases in order to track down bugs and problems in working with a particular operator. They check calls to landline and mobile phones, work of SMS and USSD codes and much more.
Then the smartphone must be certified by the operator. Each of them does it differently. For example, with Tele2, it is enough to test one device and confirm that the next smartphones will support VoLTE with the same configuration and it is enough to obtain permits for the method used. Megafon and MTS invite employees with smartphones to their test labs and test the devices for compatibility on their own.
And only after all this, VoLTE support goes into commercial use and becomes available to ordinary users.
Problems with Wi-Fi Calling
In fact, a call using WFC is a kind of analogue of VoIP telephony and in the long term will be able to save us from voice roaming, because any Wi-Fi network will be a 'home' region for a smartphone.
But there are a few subtle points. First, WFC makes it harder for intelligence agencies to track your location. Operators are already working with this problem, but it still exists. Secondly, it is not clear how the device should behave in difficult situations, when the smartphone switches from Wi-Fi to the area of ordinary voice communication. Here, by the way, two options are possible: if the manufacturer or operator failed to configure SRVCC (digital communication domain), then the call will be dropped; if it gets confused, then there will be just a seamless transition, invisible to the subscriber.
Why is this important for operators?
Both WFC and VoLTE help operators offload voice calls to their networks. In the case of WFC, in principle, the load on the base station is reduced, and VoLTE allows you to avoid constant switching of the smartphone from 3G to LTE and vice versa.
At the moment, operators are not very active in encouraging manufacturers to work on these functions, but they have tools for such motivational kicks. In 2018, massive support for both technologies can be expected.
Why are manufacturers in no rush?
The implementation of VoLTE and WFC is complicated and requires a lot of efforts of specific people, not everyone wants to spend time, money and resources on this, especially since it so happens that so far both technologies are not fashionable, unlike a display with an aspect ratio of 18: 9, NFC or Type-C port.
Even more, technology support in specific countries is highly dependent on local offices. So, in the Russian office of Moto, they paid attention to this parameter, and I would like to praise the employees who were not too lazy to work on supporting both standards, as a result, in January-February, all current devices starting from the middle segment will already have both WFC and VoLTE, budget – VoLTE only.
Which of the two technologies are supported by our operators?
At the moment, MTS has public support for WFC, and VoLTE, according to rumors, will appear in the near future. Megafon supports VoLTE, WFC is also in the plans, but the dates of the official launch are still unknown. Tele2 only supports VoLTE, and Beeline, due to the equipment upgrade, does not yet work with either the first or the second technology.
Important clarification: VoLTE on smartphones with two SIM cards will only work on the main SIM card. Its simultaneous operation on both SIM cards is theoretically possible only if there are two radio modules, but in fact it is not known for sure whether they both will work in this mode.
Conclusion
Moto smartphones are one of the few that support both technologies (in some devices already now, in others – literally in a month or two), and, as I wrote above, this is the merit of the Russian office. I like this kind of attentive attitude towards my users, and I would like to note separately that it manifests itself not only in these technologies.
In one of the following articles, I will tell you about the different implementations of pre-installed applications, as well as what elegant solution Moto uses for this.