by Mike Edgett
28. October 2010 13:23
There has been a lot of talk about the value of LTE for
enabling high-bandwidth applications and services….primarily web browsing and
associate services (e.g., You-Tube, Hulu, etc.). Recently, though, there have been a number of articles and studies
talking about the value of voice over LTE. These include reports from industry experts including Brian
Partridge at the Yankee Group (“IMS Finally Finds its ‘Calling” With Voice over
LTE”, June 2010), Joe Madden & Stuart Carlaw at ABI Research (“Mobile HD
Voice”, Q1 2010) and Michael Stanford in Internet Telephony (“Returning on
Investment for HD Voice”, Sept 2010).
All of these address the improved voice quality that carriers can
deliver if they move to Voice over LTE.
The question, though, is whether the investment is worth it.
It appears that one area that would bring all this together,
both improved web browsing and improved voice, would be carrier solutions for
the enterprise. Now carriers can
provide a better voice communication experience as well as provide the
bandwidth needed for collaborative business services such audio conferencing,
web collaboration and even video conferencing. And this can all be provided on a mobile device, anytime and
anywhere. While this may be
years away as carriers finalize plans and actually roll out their complete LTE
networks, the role of enterprise-focused communication applications in mobile
is likely to grow.