Paul Gowans, a seasoned mobile network and service expert at Viavi Solutions, will be presenting on voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) at a conference next week where Viavi will serve as a sponsor.  The LTE Voice Summit will be held September 28-30 at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel, London.  The event promotes that its speakers bring together “case studies” from around the world from “EE, LG U+, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Swisscom and more.”   Viavi is scheduled to take part in VoLTE demos, where, according to show organizers, “demonstrations from leading vendors show you how to make theory a reality”.

As Sarah Thomas of Light Reading recently reported:  “The good news about voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) is that it works as advertised — crisp, high-quality sound with an instant connection — but the bad news is a lot of stars have to align to actually experience it.”

You might say, it is at events such as the LTE Voice Summit where the stars continue their alignment process to help speed the evolution of such a hopeful mobile technology.

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Paul Gowans: “The theme of my presentation will be how to address some of the key VoLTE challenges and ensure the subscribers gets an exceptional VoLTE service.”

I asked Paul Gowans his view heading into the event…here is that exchange.

Paul, Viavi is very active in VoLTE forums and helping to advance the technology … how has VoLTE progressed since last year? 

VoLTE has evolved significantly from a year ago. At the event last year many operators were planning their VoLTE roll-out and engaging their technology partners such as Viavi on the challenges to address and ensure they deliver on the high expectations of VoLTE. Now, we have many operators who have either deployed or are very close to deploying. Of course now that LTE is much more broadly rolled out, this sets the foundation for extra LTE-based services such as VoLTE.

There is also the area of the relevance of voice today – many people of course have an iPhone or other Smartphone and use a multitude of methods to communicate –  certain generations don’t talk at all! So, the industry has had to appreciate that VoLTE needs to be integrated into the way people communicate today.

What are the top three challenges that remain?

Working closely with our mobile operator customers and building on our experience with IP based voice services as well as RAN and Core network challenges I would say the top three challenges are:

  •  Voice Quality – measuring end-to-end (E2E) voice quality is fundamental to understanding the customers quality of experience (QoE). Knowing what metrics are important, where to measure and quickly finding the root cause of voice quality affecting issues.
  • Handovers – when you move out of an LTE service area and have an active VoLTE call, the user will want to continue with that call. SRVCC seamlessly maintains calls when a mobile user moves from LTE to non-LTE coverage areas. Of course, there is the potential for things to go wrong and calls to get dropped. Also, if the user is not supporting VoLTE but is using LTE, when they receive a call the phone and network need to fall back (CSFB) so that both data and voice are non-LTE.
  • Location – not only knowing what service is being provided to the consumer but also from where so that you can determine, for example, VoLTE hot spots  – that is where there may be too many dropped calls or handovers have failed.

 What will be your main presentation theme/message at the event?

In addition to introducing Viavi Solutions to the audience, the theme of the presentation is how to address some of the key VoLTE challenges and ensure the subscribers gets an exceptional VoLTE service. We will be exploring voice quality- passive measuring, active measuring – how integrating handset data with core data and then geo-locate that information to maximize the business impact of the service. The E2E view of the service from device to RAN to backhaul and core.

How has the refined focus as ‘Viavi Solutions’ helped us with our partners, forums, providers in the VoLTE market? 

We have a focus as Viavi Solutions and a clear strategic direction – Viavi is responding to a changing world. Technology cycles are compressed and complex, new cloud-based, self-organizing, virtualized architectures are being realized, and software-as-a-service models are more prevalent. We have built up a strong, best-in-class E2E portfolio and we are building an E2E vision through an open module QoE platform – extensible, integrated and meeting the scale of mobile networks.

Thanks for your time Paul, have a great event!

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