An upheaval underway in wireless voice services. The big question that I have not seen an answer to: Will enough spectrum be available to support the traffic?
"Major cell operators--many of which already make extensive internal use of VoIP to cut down on the cost of their own operations--are now making plans to extend VoIP calls from the network core to the handsets. This push coincides with wireless broadband networks the operators are now building, which can transmit the data bits fast enough, and with more accuracy, to make VoIP calling on cell phones a reality.
'VoIP is one of the key drivers right now,' said Texas Instruments Advanced Wireless Architectures Manager Bill Krenik.
Qualcomm, Nortel shift over VoIP.
There's no better sign of the big influence that VoIP is having on cell phones than a decision by wireless powerhouse Qualcomm to tentatively halt plans for a new generation of its latest cell phone technology, known as EV-DV. Designed to deliver voice calls and high-speed data, EV-DV was considered the next step for operators like Verizon Wireless and Sprint, which currently use another Qualcomm technology called EV-DO, which delivers just broadband to handsets.
But with VoIP, the latest generation of EV-DO, known as EV-DO Revision A, can also support voice calls, making EV-DV irrelevant. In a press conference here, Qualcomm Chief Executive and founder Irwin Jacobs said the chipmaker and CDMA inventor has, for now, shelved its EV-DV plans.
'We have developed EV-DV chips for infrastructure and for developing phones, but we've backed off--voice over Internet Protocol is the future,' Jacobs said."
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