Today (17 February), Irish telecoms company Eir said it is introducing 4G calling. The Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) service means that Eir customers will be able to start a call over WiFi – in their homes or at work, for example – and then move that call outside onto the Eir mobile network.
Eir first introduced WiFi calling in 2017. Two years later, Vodafone did the same while expanding its 5G testbed in Dublin. At that time, Vodafone Ireland’s head of networks, Max Gasparroni, told Siliconrepublic.com about the advantages of 4G calling.
In addition to faster call set-up times and higher-definition sound, Gasparroni said: “If you are using data on the phone, the incoming call won’t interrupt the data experience. 2G and 3G are still HD calls, but with 4G going forward you are going to see an increase in quality and there are more innovations coming down the track.
“When you make a call over 4G, it means your call is a call over mobile data and it is integrated into the phone, and if you go outside a 4G area it goes seamlessly to 3G.”
Guillaume Duhaze, chief technology officer at Eir, said that voice communication has grown in importance “due to new ways of working and living” in the pandemic.
“4G calling will deliver real and instant improvements for customers, including noticeably sharper calls,” he said. “And as this technology does not require the installation of apps, it is easy to use.
“Once 4G calling is enabled on a device it will automatically select 4G calling when the customer connects to Eir’s 4G network. We are delighted to bring this service to Eir’s mobile customers and we are proud to help people stay connected.”
Some of the other benefits of 4G calling, according to Eir, include faster call connection – twice the speed of 3G calls and six times faster than 2G calls – as well as improved call quality.
“A big benefit for customers is that 4G calling allows multimedia operations to work simultaneously, making multitasking possible,” the company said. “During a call, users can send emails, browse the internet and watch videos without disruption using their mobile data.”
Eir said that 4G calling is available on selected mobile plans and on a range of Samsung and Oppo devices, and that it can be manually activated on Apple devices with iOS 13 or later.
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