HD Voice for iPhone 5

Justin,

VOLTE (voice over LTE networks) is a very simple technology over the LTE networks.  It is a specific CoDec agreed to by the network providers to send voice over LTE networks.  It does not require any recent smartphone hardware technology - other than LTE radios.

Perhaps if the VOLTE CoDecs become established - maybe the Codecs will be built into smartphone chipsets.  That has not occured at this point because the kinks are still being worked out and there seems to be issues between the AT&T CoDec interfacing with - say - Sprints CoDec.  I'm guessing AT&T will roll out new versions of its VOLTE CoDec from time to time over the immediate future.

There are lots of voice over Wifi apps available to run on almost any smartphone.  There's no reason AT&T can't add the same functionality for LTE for any LTE capable smartphone.

I can see that my iPhone 5 does not have LTE Voice available under Settings, Cellular, Cellullar Data Options.  I was trying to find out if anyone knew about what AT&Ts plans were regarding AT&T LTE capable smartphones that do not currently have VOLTE.

David,

Nice link - thanks.

From that link:

The Qualcomm MDM9615M ... in the iPhone 5 ... is responsible for transmitting simultaneous voice and data transfer on LTE (provided the carrier has the infrastructure to allow simultaneous voice and data transfer.)

So, as I said - the iPhone 5 is VoLTE capable - but, AT&T has not provided the network-provider software to do that on an iPhone 5 - yet.

And I would agree with your assesment that AT&T may not do it because - well - they just don't want to - but, I'm thinking it would be so trivial  a thing to do they might do it (AT&T has transmitted network tech updates before) - nobody knows.

@truerock I'm aware of what VoLTE and HD Voice are and the differences and the requirements.

AT&T has a lot more control over their Android phones and may be able to add VoLTE and HD Voice onto older phones, but for iPhones, Apple is the gatekeeper. And they don't seem to want any iPhone under the iPhone 6 supporting VoLTE. And since AT&T only supports HD Voice on VoLTE, that would make the iPhone 5 not compatible with HD Voice on AT&T.

Honestly, I wish they would either make HD Voice available on UMTS/HSPA or make VoLTE available to more phones. I'd love to have more calls be HD Voice quality. The difference is amazing.

I would even like for Apple to provide a reason as to why no phone before the 6 does support VoLTE.

I know the article @David606 (also I do like your opinions, David) says the hardware is capable of it, but I can't find any instance of any carrier supporting it because it doesn't appear as though Apple allowed it. That's nothing new with Apple.

@truerock I did also miss your last line in your post.

While I'm of course no official source, just judging by previous AT&T rollouts, I'm going to say that even for the older Android phones that AT&T could possibly add VoLTE/HD Voice to, they probably won't. 😞

Like @David606 said, they wanna sell more phones, and they wanna sell newer phones. Is it that hard to implement the software updates for VoLTE/HD Voice? No clue. But it could make people decide a new phone isn't needed and there goes some income for them.

It takes resources to do that. You have to dedicate people and software update teams to create and deploy these updates.

Pretty sure this isn't a segment of any cellular carrier that has thousands of people. Maybe a handful of teams working on software updates. There are current and future phones that need development for also. Putting people on software updates for older devices takes away from resources for current and upcoming ones.

@David606 Agreed. 

I would say the iPhone 4S is definitely out. It's a 5 year old phone. I'm sure app developers would love to stop having to make 640x960 resolution assets and having to worry about that very slow, very outdated CPU.

People have the ability to vote with their wallets if a particular cellular carrier does not fit their needs. When it comes to any policy this is about the only insight that can be provided. Whether it's unlimited and hotspot. The 10 person MMS limit or no VOLTE on non-branded phones.

If the ability to BYOP and use VOLTE was an issue creating huge amounts of churn it would have been addressed as such. Looks like it's not creating egregious amounts of exodus so the amount there is must be acceptable to the people in charge. Technical feasibility means pretty much nil here because what's technically possible is meaningless unless it's implementation is favorable and welcome. Which we all know it isn't. So if someone is a BYOP customer and a feature like VOLTE is crucial, AT&T is not going to be the provider that fits that need. No amount of dissent or displeasure will budge the humongous rock that is policy and procedure. It's like fighting a tank with a toothpick.

The FCC will absolutely not step in an make it a requirement either. If someone pops in a SIM card into an unlocked, non-branded phone and it can make voice calls over cellular then that's it. A carrier doesn't even have to guarantee that data works on a non-branded device.