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US to provide boost to fledgling VoLTE market in 2014

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Harmeet
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BOSTON & LAS VEGAS, USA: AT&T's comments at CES of an imminent Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and HD Voice launch provides a welcome boost for LTE-based voice services.

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According to a recent report from Strategy Analytics' Wireless Operator Strategies (WOS) service, "Is VoLTE the Answer to the OTT Voice Threat?, the US will be a key market for VoLTE in 2014, alongside South Korea and Japan, helping to stem the flow of mobile voice minutes to OTT voice / VoIP services.

The report asserts that few operators are feeling the need to rush to launch VoLTE today, resulting in 2014 growth being quite geographically dispersed. Outside of the leading 4G LTE markets of the US, South Korea and Japan, VoLTE will launch in markets ranging from the UK and Germany, to Russia and Saudi Arabia. VoLTE connections will generate 0.5 percent of mobile voice minutes globally in 2014, growing to 10 percent in 2018.

"With T-Mobile pushing its HD Voice service, we will see Verizon Wireless and Sprint join AT&T in offering VoLTE-based HD Voice in 2014," comments Phil Kendall, director, Wireless Operator Strategies and author of the report. "This mix of inter-carrier competition and the growing scale of OTT Voice services like Skype and Viber will help to make the smartphone-dominated US a leading VoLTE market in the medium term."

Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, director, Wireless Operators & Networks, adds: "HD Voice will be a key marketing message behind most VoLTE launches, with today's VoIP users very receptive to this message. However, mobile operators will need to move beyond this and make VoLTE integrate and interoperate with other services to create richer user experience and keep their voice propositions relative in the long term. This service innovation will be critical for key segments such as the youth and enterprise market."

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