AT&T expects 4G voice a year later than Verizon
updated 07:20 am EST, Wed February 16, 2011
ATT plans Voice over LTE for 2013
AT&T in a talk on Tuesday said it too would have 4G voice calling. CTO John Donovan anticipated his carrier supporting the official Voice over LTE (VoLTE) standard in 2013, or about a year after Verizon. He noted to Forbes that the timing was hinging on the formal standard's approval and that there could be interim apps in between that fill out the role.
Despite Verizon planning to be the first in the US, AT&T had the "most ambitious program" in "timing and scale," Donovan said. AT&T is counting primarily on the diversity of services, such as video calls.
The company has a seven year plan to transition its voice services to a completely modern architecture that centers on a common platform. Most carriers, including AT&T, are moving more towards an IP-based structure that gets away from the frequently complex and costly traditional cellular network.
Voice over LTE promises to dramatically improve call quality on cellphone networks by moving the calls entirely to VoIP. We tried it at Mobile World Congress and heard audio quality that was comparable to a service like Skype, if not better.
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Yep, time to go...
After explaining to AT&T that if they didn't reinstate my unlimited data plan I would take my family (4 iPhones - 3 ready for upgrades on 4/29) to Verizon and also move our TV and internet to other competitors I was told basically to "Piss off. We don't need you as a customer. Your $350 a month means nothing to us."
As of yesterday my family now has 4 nice and shiny Verizon iPhones. After we sold our three iPhone 3GS's and one iPhone 4 on eBay for $1400 in less than a week we came out ahead by almost $100. That is after buying four iPhone 4 16GB models, all with Apple care and new cases in addition to paying our ETF fees with AT&T.
After reading this article I am more than happy to have switched!!! Adios AT&T.