On August 17th, China Mobile Zhejiang branch (hereinafter referred to as “Zhejiang Mobile”) officially launched “4G+ HD audio calls and network acceleration” commercial services, namely commercialization of VoLTE and carrier aggregation(CA)technologies, bringing brand new experiences for over 18 million 4G subscribers, this is also the first time in China.
The so-called "4G+ HD audio calls" refers to the introduction of VoLTE technology, with the characteristics of shorter call setup time, better voice quality and more clear video calls; while the "4G+ network acceleration" adopted CA, MIMO and other technologies, which can effectively improve network speed, reduce the time delay and achieve double speed in 4G network.
C114 is informed that the "4G+ HD audio calls" service is mainly open to subscribers in Hangzhou at present, while "4G+ network acceleration" will achieve synchronous commercialization in the 11 cities of Zhejiang province, it is expected that the full commercialization of "4G+ HD audio calls" service in Zhejiang province will be achieved in November of this year.
At present, Zhejiang Mobile has got over 80,000 4G base stations, with its 4G network covering the major cities, scenic regions, rural areas and traffic arteries and more than 95% of the population in Zhejiang, its 4G subscribers have reached 18 million in Zhejiang and the 4G development level is in the leading position of China. On this basis, Zhejiang Mobile first started 4G+ test and deployment in China.
In the tariff, the "4G+ HD audio calls" service is charged by the call duration, and voice calls are charged by voice tariffs, this is included in the existing packages; the 4G video calls are charged independently to the servicing time and are free when users are called, but this is not included in the existing packages. The traffic data produced by "4G+ network acceleration" will be regarded the same as ordinary 4G data, incorporating into the data traffic of the packages.
According to C114, mobile phones supporting VoLTE include Huawei Mate7, Samsung S6, China Mobile N1 (specific version supporting VoLTE) and others, it is expected that over 20 models of devices will support 4G+ HD audio calls by the end of this year, while the mainstream mobile phones will all support VoLTE by the end of 2016. Mobile phones supporting CA include Huawei Mate7, Huawei P8, Honor 7, Honor 6, Honor 6plus, Samsung S6, Samsung SM-G9198, Samsung S6 Edge, Xiaomi Note top version, LeTV 1Pro, LeTV 1Max, LG Flex2 and others.
Subscribers of China Mobile don’t need to register or go through procedures, as long as the mobile phones support 4G and have opened 4G function, they only need to turn on the “CA” capacity in device to open this service, over 25 models of devices are expected to support CA by the end of this year, and all the mainstream 4G mobile phones will support CA by the end of 2016.