At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Telefónica showcased Wi-Fi access working seamlessly with 4G.
Telefónica’s vision is to enable smartphone and tablet users to move seamlessly between different wireless access technologies without losing coverage – leading the way to a wide range of next generation multimedia services. The carrier believes Wi-Fi will prove to be more useful when it is fully integrated with 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) based mobile technologies.
Telefónica’s demo at the MWC showcases highly advanced network features enabling seamless handover between Wi-Fi and LTE and also implementing a set of network policies easing the discovery and selection of the network, regardless of the access technology and transparently to the customer. WiFi and LTE networks in seamless integration enabling communication uninterrupted service sessions during handovers across access technologies.
The company also demoed voice over LTE, which offers approximately 40% improvement on voice quality and the ability to make connections in 0.25 seconds or 20 times faster than a standard 3G call.
Telefonica said a key advantage of VoLTE is that it can be combined with several enhanced IP-based services such as High Definition Voice, presence, location, and Rich Communication Suite (RCS) additions like instant messaging, video share and enhanced phone books. Moreover, VoLTE enables prioritization over other data streams to deliver consistently high quality service levels.
