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August 28, 2014

Verizon's 'Advanced Calling 1.0' Raises a Number of Questions

AT&T and T-Mobile US are offering Voice over LTE (VoLTE), while Verizon today is trying to reframe the discussion into “Advanced Calling 1.0.” I am not looking forward to reading how it will play out among the OTT and WebRTC communities, but John Legare’s comments should be both entertaining and scathing in the days to come.

Verizon’s descent into deeper marketing speak is disturbing, but few are noticing. First, Verizon gave us XLTE to describe its vision of better-faster-stronger LTE, and now it has rolled its long-delayed VoLTE rollout into an HD voice and video calling extravaganza dubbed “Advanced Calling 1.0.”

Via blog post on August 26, Verizon claims that VoLTE technology “simplifies” video calling – a fascinating claim when compared to years of Skype and other peer-to-peer clients. Perhaps in the consumer world this argument may fly, but I also expect some pointed questions from the long-suffering enterprise community that has battled with telepresence and video connectivity issues for a decade or more.

Enterprise users will ask obvious questions such as, Can Advanced Calling 1.0 support multi-party video conferencing a la Google Hangouts? Will it natively support tablets, a far better form factor than the biggest “phablet” or smartphone when video is involved? Will Advanced Calling 1.0 talk to SIP and the $50,000 IP-based video conference solutions in use today? If not, then when?  I don’t think enterprise customers are looking for the answer of “Give everyone an LTE device to do videoconferencing.”

More basic questions include if and how Verizon Wireless plans to bridge Advanced Calling 1.0 to its VIPER SIP federation service supporting G.722 HD voice – the current de facto standard for HD voice on the enterprise desktop and IP PBX. Will this be Advanced Calling 1.5? 3.0?

Another interesting discussion piece to rile up the OTT/WebRTC bigots – Advanced Calling 1.0 appears to be RCS/Joyn-based, but only supports voice and video; no IM or presence or file/screen sharing or other bells and whistles. European carriers have deployed full RCS suites from day one and Sprint uses Jibe Mobile’s “Messaging Plus” app for its RCS bootstrapping efforts, so this is another “What is going on?” moment. I suppose Verizon will wait another year before introducing “Advanced Calling 2.0” with full RCS support, including integrated IM, presence, and file/screen sharing. I haven’t heard any other U.S. carriers talk about integrated video calling, but I wouldn’t put it past T-Mobile to come up with a spoiler announcement by CTIA, followed by AT&T rolling out a full RCS suite next year.

The big issue not being talked about is interoperability with other wireless carriers, both for basic VoLTE voice service and deeper RCS functionality.  VoLTE is a “standards-based solution,” as Verizon emphasizes. The company should start addressing how it will be interoperable with other U.S. and international carriers, both for baseline HD voice and more advanced RCS-based services.

More information will be forthcoming in a little less than two weeks at CTIA’s conference in Las Vegas, from Verizon, its vendors, and its U.S. competitors. AT&T and T-Mobile have both shown the ability to effectively deploy LTE, VoLTE and other advanced technologies, so the carriers will have their own off-the-record and on-the-record comments contrasting Verizon’s come-from-behind deployment with their respective efforts.

Finally, Verizon actually has to pull the trigger on a deployment, rather than running around continuing to say it will introduce VoLTE by the end of the year through blog posts and at investor meetings. It needs to cross the finish line rather than talk about the finish line. 




Edited by Rory J. Thompson


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