Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telecom company, has launched Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services in Mumbai, making it the second company to launch the services. Reliance Jio Infcomm was the first company to launch services on the technology.
VoLTE, which works over 4G, will offer High Definition (HD) voice calls along with faster call set up time.
“This is a significant milestone in Airtel’s network transformation journey under Project Leap. Airtel has built a world-class 4G network across India and with the VoLTE compatible device ecosystem beginning to mature, we believe it’s the right time to enable VoLTE calling as part of our service portfolio,” said Abhay Savargaonkar, Director–Networks at Bharti Airtel.
“Over the next few months, we will rapidly accelerate the deployment of VoLTE to cover all key geographies to bring HD quality calling to our customers. We keenly look forward to our device partners enabling Airtel VoLTE on their smartphones,” he added.
Airtel will provide VoLTE on popular 4G/LTE-enabled mobile devices with 4G SIMs. Using the services, subscribers can call any mobile and landline network. VoLTE will also enable customers to access data at 4G speeds while the call is in progress.
There will be no additional data charges for VoLTE and calls will be billed as per existing plan or packs benefits, the company said in a statement.