HTC Smartphone with Voice Over LTE Coming to MetroPCS

MetroPCS will deliver a Voice Over LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology)-capable phone from HTC, making the unnamed cell phone the second afterwards Verizon Wireless's LG Revolution to be able to make phone calls over the new 4G network, Dan Warren, innovation director for the GSM Association, said today.

Tiny MetroPCS and huge Verizon Wireless have been trading places on LTE leadership for the past few months as Metro tries to gain press and clients by one-upping its biggest rival at its own game. MetroPCS was the first to launch an LTE phone, the Samsung Craft, however Verizon at that time debuted a much larger, faster LTE network than MetroPCS runs. Verizon's first LTE smartphone, the HTC Thunderbolt, is coming in a few weeks, so MetroPCS made sure to release the Samsung Galaxy Indulge this week.

Yesterday Verizon reported that it had completed a Voice Over LTE call with the upcoming LG Revolution phone, which is coming out this summer. For Verizon, VoLTE lets the carrier give the same "simultaneous voice and data" experience that AT&T has been touting in its iPhone ads of late.

VoLTE is furthermore critical for MetroPCS, which has to share very limited spectrum between 2G CDMA and LTE. Enabling VoLTE lets MetroPCS devote more spectrum to LTE and support more clients at faster Internet speeds.

Unlike current VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) systems just as Skype and Fring, VoLTE is totally integrated into carrier networks. It acts in every respect like making an old-fashioned, circuit-switched voice call, just over the LTE network to put it more exactly than using an old 2G system.

The constant competition comes in spite of the fact that the two companies have very different LTE strategies. For Verizon, LTE is a super-fast Internet network. For MetroPCS, it lets the carrier offer 3G-like services at very low rates to a wide range of people. MetroPCS currently offers LTE in 13 metro areas; Verizon has 38.

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