VoLTE

Using Policy to Deliver High Denition Voice Services

VoLTEThe New Voice (thats Data)

The continued roll out and growth of LTE places operators plans for voice services increasingly in the spotlight. Providing data services on one network and voice services on older circuit switched networks, may not make best use of scarce resources. LTE provides lower cost of ownership over older networks, so consolidating data and voice services on LTE makes nancial sense. It can also deliver customers a better service experience and enable operators to be better equipped to compete against OTT VoIP and messaging providers. Voice over LTE (VoLTE) enables operators to consolidate network expenses, provide much more ecient use of spectrum, and deliver a wider range of services for their customers. While the initial function of VoLTE is voice services, as its based on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), it enables operators to deliver many more services, such as Rich Communications Suite (RCS) oers including messaging and video calling. These can be oered and bundled with voice services that can be easily used by the operators subscribers. As VoLTE is delivered as a voice service over a data network, it will require control and delivery capabilities that, while used extensively in data services, were not required in traditional circuit switched voice networks. One of the main control and delivery functions needed by VoLTE will be policy management to ensure the consistent and quality delivery of a High Denition (HD) voice service.

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The Growth of HD Voice and LTE

There is already a fast expanding market for HD voice. As of September 2013, 83 mobile operators in 61 countries oer HD voice services.* While most of these are on 3G HSPA, a number are VoLTE. This is set to increase as several large tier one operators look to launch VoLTE in the near future, taking advantage of the success of LTE. The rate of growth of LTE continues unsurpassed: by December 2013 there were 244 live LTE networks with a total of 499 operators in 143 countries investing in LTE. The number of LTE subscribers is also growing fast (126M Q2, 2013up 98M in 1 year, with a forecast of 2 Billion by 2017).*

* SourceGSA, LTE Data, September, December 2013

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VoLTE Roll Out and Growth Forecasts

There is a strong demand from operators to roll out VoLTE. In August 2013 Openet surveyed over 80 mobile operators71% said that they were looking to introduce VoLTE services.* This number is backed up by research from leading research rm telecoms.com intelligence who ran a survey asking mobile operators how long after a commercial launch of LTE would they start to provide VoLTE services. The answers showed that 34% expect to see VoLTE launched commercially between 12-24 months after initial LTE launch while almost 19% expect a timescale of 6 months or less and over 27% see 6-12 months. Looking ahead, Infonetics projects the number of VoLTE subscribers to grow at a 145% compound annual growth rate from 2012 to 2017 and ARCchart forecasts that VoLTE subscriptions will represent 10% of all LTE subscribers by 2016. No matter which way you look at the numbers, LTE is enjoying massive adoption and it makes commercial sense for operators to leverage this to provide HD voice services to their LTE customers using VoLTE.

* Source: Openet SurveyCharging and Billing in the Digital Economy, August 2013

Source - Telecoms.com Intelligence Voice over LTE survey, January 2013

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PolicyDelivering Quality on Every VoLTE Call

Enabling QoS in VoLTE
Traditionally policy management has been a preserve of data services. But as VoLTE is a voice service enabled by IMS, advanced policy management is needed. In order to deliver HD voice services, the policy management system needs to dynamically manage unpredictable mobile resources associated with each VoLTE call. Policy is essential to manage the quality of service (QoS) of every VoLTE call, as the quality needs to be better than low-cost or free overthe-top services. With VoLTE, delivering QoS is not just limited to voice. Rich communication services such as video messaging also need to be managed. Just like the HD voice services, these messaging services need to have policy to dynamically manage every call and session.

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VoLTE - System Performance and Virtualization

Supplementing LTE with Existing Circuit Switched Networks
One of the components of rolling out a VoLTE service is the ability to use the existing circuit switched network when LTE coverage is not available. Circuit switched fall back (CSFB) is important so that operators can launch a VoLTE service even if they dont have full national LTE coverage, and rely on existing circuit switched networks to handle calls when a customer goes outside an area of LTE coverage. This handover from LTE to 3G will add to the large number of call records that VoLTE will generate. This can place additional pressure on the business support systems (BSS) used to collect, rate, dynamically manage and charge for VoLTE calls. Its therefore important that BSS for VoLTE (and all LTE based trac) can provide cost eective, very high performance transaction management.

VoLTEDriving the Economics for Virtualized Policy

To commercially deploy VoLTE, the policy solution needs to scale to handle a dramatic rise in transactions per second (TPS) rates and network signaling. VoLTE requires all subscribers to have a permanent data bearer channel available together with the signaling associated with the IMS application function. This will drive the requirement for additional hardware and add to the cost of providing the systems to enable delivery of VoLTE. Virtualization of policy management is critical to meeting this scaling requirement in a cost eective manner.

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Existing VoLTE Oers

The GSA reports that as at December 2013, there are six operators who have launched VoLTE services. They are SK Telecom, Korea Telecom and LG U+ in Korea, O2 in Germany, Evolved Broadband in the USA, and Azercell in Azerbaijan. Two of the current VoLTE oers are discussed below:

SK Telecom HD Voice on LTE

South Korea Telecom launched VoLTE in August 2012 and by May 2013 had more than 4.5 million customers using VoLTE. * Using the brand of HD Voice SK Telecom see VoLTE as an opportunity to better compete with OTT and VoIP services and deliver a superior voice service for customers. According to SK Telecom VoLTE dramatically improves audio quality (able to handle 2.2 times wider frequency bandwidth as 3G voice) and has much improved call setup times which range from 0.25 to 2.5 seconds on LTE, compared with a ve second setup time on 3G.*

THE FUTURE IS CALLING

LG U+ 100% LTE for Voice Calls

Korean mobile operator LG U+ is promoting 100% LTE which means that all voice calls are pure LTEin other words no circuit switched fallback on LG U+ network. In September 2013, LG U+ CEO said call success rates on 100% LTE is as high as 99.89 percent. They have emphasized that there is no need for a 3G network to back up LTE and that 100% LTE also uses less battery power. ** Since launching LTE and its associated services, all operators in South Korea have seen an increase in ARPU.*
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*Sourcetelecoms.com, May 2013. **SourceKorea Joongang Daily, August 2013

VoLTE

Openets VoLTE Solution

Openets Policy Manager provides a standards compliant (3GPP and GSMA VoLTE) solution that enables the easy conguration of policies related to IMS applications and QoS prole from a central decision core. Once Policy Manager is congured, IMS applications can be enabled through a single decision core command which greatly simplies the deployment process. Openets Policy Manager for VoLTE can be implemented as part of a larger policy solution from Openet, or as separate VoLTE / IMS policy solution for operators who have invested in other policy solutions. Openets Policy Manager provides proven tier 1 performance in a virtualized environment.

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About Openet
Since the introduction of mobile data services in 1998, Openet has helped service providers capitalize on opportunities and overcome challenges. With competitive pressure accelerating, todays service providers rely on Openet software to evolve business models around networking smartphones, M2M devices and third party services. Openets portfolio combines policy and charging control with device and third party interaction to enable innovative charging models, to control operating cost and to personalize services. More than 80 of the worlds largest service providers across over 30 countries use Openets high performance software. Openet has helped operators worldwide take advantage of growth opportunities by evolving legacy platforms to provide a exible, real-time charging/OCS capability integrated with policy control (PCC).

w w w. o p e n e t . c o m

Learn More About Openets VoLTE Solution

For more information, please visit www.openet.com

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