Demonstration shows seamless HD VoLTE hand-off to 3G with QoS Assurance

25 February 2013, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”) (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment, network solutions and mobile devices, today announced it conducted a High Definition (HD) voice over LTE (VoLTE) call using enhanced Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (eSRVCC) for Hong Kong’s leading mobile operator CSL.

With ZTE’s industry-leading technology solutions in 4G, CSL successfully conducted a HD VoLTE call hand-off to 3G with eSRVCC based pre-commercial network. HD voice will keep service continuity before and after hand-off. All network equipment used in this demonstration was provided by ZTE. This HD VoLTE call with end-to-end  QoS assurance provide highly reliable user experience and help operators differentiate their services from OTT competitors.

The Adaptive Multi Rate Wideband(AMR-WB) speech codec was supported in the HD VoLTE call demonstration. This HD voice speech codec provides improved speech quality due to a wider speech bandwidth from 50 to 7,000Hz and ensures no significant impact on radio-frequency capacity due to the efficiency of codec suitable. HD voice technology will significant promote the development of high quality voice service, such as speech recognition, speech-to-text and HD conferencing.

“VoLTE provides an improvement in spectral efficiency and is needed to increase network capacity and allow to re-farm the 3G spectrum in the future,” said Christian Daigneault, CSL Chief Technology Officer. “This HD VoLTE call using eSRVCC will shorten call set-up time, assure good handover to 3G where required and creates a better user experience for our customers. CSL has been the first to bring Dual Band LTE at 1800/2600 MHz in Asia and will continue to bring a superior network experience to its customers. The success of this demonstration is an important milestone in the development of LTE voice services in the mobile industry.”

“We are proud to work as a business partnership with CSL and this demonstration is testament to that.” said ZTE Core Network President Mr. Liu Jianhua. “We’ll continue to work with CSL to implement state-of-the-art solutions to help the company build a high-efficiency network for the Hong Kong market.”

By the end of Q4 2012, ZTE IMS product has won over 150 commercial/trial contracts worldwide. ZTE IMS product is leading the market on China, and covered Austria, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Slovenia, Peru, USA etc.