First Voice over LTE Service Now Available in Korea!

While it seems that only yesterday LTE service first became available, now Korea has taken an extra step. SK Telecom, the number one telecom provider in Korea, launched the world’s first commercially available Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service. It is now available for the Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE and will be available for most future LTE smartphones.

So what is VoLTE? It seems like a lot of people have the same question because to find an answer I turned to the appropriately named WhatIsVoLTE.com.

According to this website, VoLTE is an acronym for voice over long term evolution (LTE). Rather than using the traditional phone system, VoLTE converts your voice to bits and bytes, transmits it over the high-speed LTE data network and then translates it back into audiophile-quality sound.

The standard was developed by the One Voice Initiative, and adopted by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSMA).

From what early adopters (and officials at cell phone carriers) say, calls with VoLTE are the same clarity as a face-to-face conversation. Thinking of all the stress I get by not being able to understand what other people are saying on the phone due to bad connections, this is exactly what I need.

Photo Credit: Kalshassan’s Flickr

SK Telecom promised that the voice quality will be 40 percent better than the over 3G as VoLTE will be using a wider 50-7000 Hz spectrum instead of the conventional 300-2400 Hz. Also, the time to connect a call will be much shorter; while 3G voice calls required five seconds to connect, the new VoLTE service will only require 0.25 to 2.5 seconds!

Are you excited to experience the faster and clearer phone calls via VoLTE? I know that I am.