Vodafone India on Monday expanded its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) based services to Kolkata even as it prepares to launch the service to 4G customers across the country in phases, reported Economic Times.
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.
The English Daily reported that Arvind Singh Sachdev, business head (Kolkata & West Bengal), Vodafone India in a recent media statement said that Vodafone VoLTE is a big step towards enhancing 4G customer experience in Kolkata and enabling them to explore newer possibilities with their smart devices.
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.
