Till date, the country’s No 2 carrier had launched VoLTE services in 12 circles, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Gujarat, Maharashtra & Goa, Haryana, Keralal, Chennai, UP-East, UP-West, Karnataka and Punjab.
“Vodafone<\/a> VoLTE is a big step towards enhancing 4G customer experience in Kolkata, and enabling them to explore newer possibilities with their smart devices,” Arvind Singh Sachdev, business head (Kolkata & West Bengal), Vodafone India, said in a media statement.
Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Jio<\/a> is still the only telco in the country offering pan-India VoLTE services, marketing it as a differentiator in a crowded turf.
Last September, Bharti Airtel<\/a> was the first among the older carriers to embrace VoLTE technology and launch the service.
Earlier this month, No 3 carrier, Idea Cellular also launched VoLTE services in six key markets -- Maharashtra & Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh.
Vodafone India is poised to close its mega merger with Idea Cellular next month to create the country's biggest phone company. In With their own VoLTE services in the run up to their merger, Vodafone and Idea are likely to try and ring-fence their top-end data subscriber base amid continuing price wars since Jio's entry. Both these telcos currently offer voice services on the legacy circuit-switch technology, with data being offered on a 4G network and voice on a 3G and 2G networks.
Experts said introduction of 4G VoLTE will allow Vodafone and Idea to free up their 3G and 2G networks being currently used to offer voice services. These networks can eventually be refarmed to offer 4G data services, and would give these older telcos more airwaves for meeting surging demand for mobile broadband.
VoLTE technology, typically, allows a carrier to offer both voice and data on the same network with voice being just another application that rides on an LTE data network.
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