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1.
Introduction
The speed with which operators have adopted Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the rapid growth of LTE subscriptions in advanced markets are testament to the technologys success. In May 2013, the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reported 175 commercial LTE networks. At the end of 2012, there were already close to 70 million LTE subscriptions across the globe. LTE has become a truly mobile access method for various data applications and services. The first LTE devices were modems such as USB dongles for PCs, yet today, most LTE devices belong to the smartphone category. Voice is naturally a key service for a LTE smartphone user, but in most of todays commercial LTE networks, voice is still based on traditional Circuit Switched (CS) voice in 2G/3G networks. However, this is not only an issue of network readiness, as according to GSA, of the 261 LTE smartphones announced at the end of March 2013, only a few currently support VoLTE. As LTE network coverage continues to expand, the next important step for operators is to deploy a seamless voice over LTE (VoLTE) service. Voice is still a major source of revenue for operators, even in the most advanced mobile broadband markets. This means that operators must carefully plan how their voice and mobile broadband businesses are developed. Over the top (OTT) Voice over IP (VoIP) is an alternative to CS voice for many subscribers, because wide coverage HSPA and LTE networks and operators mobile broadband data services enable mobile use of free OTT VoIP services. However, VoLTE brings many benefits to help operators ensure their voice service remains the most attractive solution for most mobile subscribers. This paper introduces selected VoLTE technology features that affect the user experience and network performance. There are numerous existing white papers that, for example, describe VoLTE architecture, compare deployment alternatives or evaluate power consumption of VoLTE smartphones. This paper differs by describing those VoLTE features that can improve the user experience and network performance compared with OTT VoIP services such as Skype or alternative SIP VoIP solutions. It is recommended that VoLTE smartphones are tested beyond basic VoLTE Inter-Operability Testing (IOT) in order to evaluate VoLTE smartphone performance and VoLTE competitive advantages against alternative solutions.
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2.
VoLTE markets
Mobile broadband (HSPA and LTE) is going mainstream and LTE is the most rapidly adopted mobile technology ever, with the GSA forecasting 234 commercial LTE networks in 83 countries by the end of 2013. LTE smartphones are commonly available in many markets, but VoLTE is still emerging. This is because most operators initially offer CS voice for LTE smartphone subscribers using CSFB (Circuit Switched Fallback) in LTEGSM/WCDMA and LTE-CDMA networks or SVLTE (Simultaneous Voice and LTE) in LTE-CDMA networks. The traditional operator safe havens of voice and messaging have been under attack by OTT service providers over the last few years. Therefore, operators strategies for maintaining profitable business include developing the mobile voice service combined with an enhanced end-user experience. The whole telecommunications industry thus has a strong focus on VoLTE and the evolution of rich communication. LG U+, SKT (Korea) and metroPCS (USA) were the first operators to start a commercial VoLTE service in August 2012. KT (Korea) was next to launch in October 2012. Currently, the Korean VoLTE market is developing the most swiftly, with about 2.8 million VoLTE subscribers in March 2013 and a high monthly growth rate. Furthermore, many operators worldwide have also been testing VoLTE.
Koreas position as the leading VoLTE market is also highlighted by the growing selection of VoLTE smartphones available. Currently, these VoLTE smartphones are dedicated for Korean operators and networks, with all these Korean VoLTE devices running Android. Finally, it is worth mentioning that VoLTE is strongly linked to the evolution of RCS (Rich Communication Services), because both are IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based services. In the first phase, RCS provides contacts, chat, file sharing and video sharing services. RCS has been launched by operators in Korea, Europe and the USA.
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3.
3.1
3.1.1
VoLTE technology
VoLTE user experience
VoLTE talk time
Battery life is a top concern for todays smartphone users. Broadband radios, large touch screen displays and gigahertz multi-core processors consume a lot of energy. Therefore, optimizations that improve battery life are very important for both mobile operators and smartphone vendors. The first VoLTE implementations received much public attention, because the VoLTE talk time seemed to be worse than with traditional CS voice services. However, the early implementations were not optimized for low current consumption. The main components affecting current consumption during voice calls are cellular radio and voice codec components. Usually the display is turned off by a trigger from either a proximity sensor or timer. If a VoLTE audio codec is integrated to the modem processor, VoLTE power consumption can be lower than with OTT VoIP applications, which are running in the application processor. Cellular radio transmission and reception can be optimized significantly to reduce energy consumption. The biggest energy saving is achieved by shutting down the transmission and reception whenever possible. During a voice call, this is possible by using Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) and Discontinuous Reception (DRX). Standard voice is packetized in 20 ms intervals i.e. each voice packet includes 20 ms of voice. Cellular radio resources are divided in the time domain into Transmission Time Intervals (TTI), which in LTE are as short as 1 ms. Because LTE is broadband technology, it is possible to send one voice packet within one TTI. Therefore, a VoLTE smartphone can shut down transmission and reception between voice packets. Further opportunities for DTX/DRX can be achieved using packet aggregation, which means that two voice packets are sent in one TTI every 40 ms.
3.1.2
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WCDMA/HSPA networks as well as in a few GSM networks. The wideband codec improves voice quality by transmitting a broader spectrum of human voice frequencies than narrowband codecs. Perceived voice quality depends on the audio codec used and the mouth-toear delay, as well as transmission impairments such as jitter, bit errors and packet loss. VoLTE improves performance, particularly during busy hours, by establishing a dedicated Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) bearer for voice. The GBR bearer offers a low latency and low jitter connection. Voice service experience is further affected by the call-setup performance and call reliability. LTE can improve mobile voice call-setup time significantly due to the high capacity and low latency LTE radio access available for the signaling connection between the UE and voice service core.
3.1.3
VoLTE coverage
In poor radio conditions, data can be received with errors. This effect is particularly visible at the cell edge due to the limited UE transmission power. In order to improve the reliability of VoLTE packet transmission in the uplink direction, it is possible to use a technique called Transmission Time Interval (TTI) bundling. This relies on sending a few redundant versions of the same set of bits in consecutive TTIs. TTI bundling is estimated to provide 2 - 4 dB uplink coverage improvement for VoLTE. LTE coverage will not be as wide as, for example, GSM for several years. When VoLTE service is deployed, mobility at the border of the LTE coverage area with GSM/WCDMA is solved with Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) technology, which differentiates the VoLTE service experience from alternative VoIP services.
3.2
3.2.1
3.2.2
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DS enables efficient use of radio resources for bursty traffic, but due to dynamic resource allocations, control channel information must be sent along the data transmission both in uplink and downlink directions. To overcome this, the LTE base station can use an alternative scheduling method called Semi Persistent Scheduling (SPS), which assigns predefined radio resources for the VoLTE user. SPS does however, have some drawbacks. It must use fixed link adaptation and a fixed resource block in the frequency domain, which prevents any advanced link adaptation or scheduling. SPS is also not well suited for mixed voice and data traffic, because fixed SPS allocations limit data scheduling. Another method to reduce the control overhead is packet aggregation, resulting in a 40 ms transmission interval. As a conclusion, in realistic network deployments with mixed VoLTE and data usage, instead of using SPS, the optimal solution is to use packet aggregation with dynamic scheduling. Use of Robust Header Compression (RoHC) with a GBR bearer will reduce the user plane traffic by several bytes over the air interface. For VoIP packets, the size of IP headers (IP/UDP/RTP) is larger than the voice payload itself. RoHC can compress the header size from 40 bytes to two or three bytes between the user device and base station. This high compression ratio not only increases network capacity but also provides coverage improvements for VoLTE users compared to OTT VoIP of up to 3 dB due to the lower bandwidth required at the cell edge.
3.2.3
Signaling capacity
There is no frequent background keep-alive traffic associated with IMS based services, which is an advantage over OTT VoIP services. OTT VoIP apps (Viber, Skype, etc.) must maintain active sessions with keep-alive messages in order to stay reachable for incoming calls. These frequent keep-alive transactions eventually result in large signaling load in the network. With IMS services, the client device performs periodical re-registrations to the IMS, but the frequency is significantly lower than that of OTT apps. A VoLTE service requires additional signaling for setting up a dedicated GBR bearer to fulfill the QoS requirement, but the expected network impact is low. It is worth noting that smartphone platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone tend to have platform specific connections (e.g. to get notifications and automatic software updates), which generate data transactions and signaling load. The impact of VoLTE on signaling load is therefore assumed to be negligible.
3.2.4
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4.
4.1
Voice call Group call Video call Group video call Chat Group chat File sharing Smartphones, tablets
X X X X X X All files iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Symbian PCs, TVs, iPod touch, PlayStation Vita, Skype handsets, Xbox One Premium services available
Other devices
PSTN interworking
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4.2
4.3
4.3.1
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With VoIP services, the smartphone current consumption can be measured during a call and during periods of user inactivity. Because an average user can spend some tens of minutes in voice calls daily, it is more important to compare the current consumption caused by background activity of a VoIP application. Measurements show that the background activity of different OTT VoIP applications varies significantly, with a noticeable effect on the UE battery life time. Current consumption during a OTT VoIP call depends mainly on the hardware components of the smartphone, as in practice, HSPA or LTE radio must be continuously in a high power connected state (Cell_DCH or RRC connected respectively). On the other hand, VoLTE is specified to support a connected state DRX during the call. Therefore, VoLTE is expected to have lower current consumption during the call than any OTT VoIP service.
4.3.2
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5.
User experience Voice quality audio Voice quality latency Wideband codec Minimal
GBR bearer Optimized voice coverage with TTI bundling Minimal 20 and 40 ms DRX Minimal activity in background SIP call control. Policy control. Dedicated bearer establishment. Minimal activity. Negligible impact on smartphone signaling load. 20 ms packetization. Coding rate + IP overhead. ROHC over radio.
Best effort Lower voice quality at cell edge Minimal No DRX Minimal activity in background SIP call control. Policy control.
Call setup time Battery life talk time Battery life standby time Network impact Signaling call setup
Minimal activity. Negligible impact on smartphone signaling load. 20 ms packetization. Coding rate + IP overhead
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6.
Conclusions
Operators need a voice evolution strategy, which must include the right timing for the introduction of VoLTE, as well as a defined position on OTT VoIP and alternative SIP VoIP. Strategic and product decisions such as the selection of a device portfolio can be improved by having exact information about device and service performance. VoLTE is a standardized service and correct functional interworking will be checked in IOT testing between device and network vendors. However, the scope of IOT testing does not fully cover user experience and measurements and analysis of network effects. In particular, the comparison to OTT and other alternatives is missing. Operators must understand the user experience differences between VoIP alternatives and how the network should be designed, dimensioned and configured for VoIP services. For example, VoLTE talk time optimization is not straightforward and it is not enough to simply check the device capabilities for VoLTE and DRX. Specialized test methods are needed to verify the current consumption of VoLTE with different network configurations and in different radio conditions. Other special testing and analysis methods are also needed to verify the user experience and network performance with different devices and VoIP services.
Nokia Siemens Networks P.O. Box 1 FI-02022 NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS Finland Visiting address: Karaportti 3, ESPOO, Finland Switchboard +358 71 400 4000 (Finland) Switchboard +49 89 5159 01 (Germany) Product code: C401-00798-WP-201307-1-EN Copyright 2013 Nokia Siemens Networks. All rights reserved. Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation, Siemens is a registered trademark of Siemens AG. The wave logo is a trademark of Nokia Siemens Networks Oy. Other company and product names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of their respective owners, and they are mentioned for identification purposes only. This publication is issued to provide information only and is not to form part of any order or contract. The products and services described herein are subject to availability and change without notice.