September 17, 2009 | The VoLGA Forum announced today it has published the first complete set of approved specifications for delivering mobile voice and SMS messaging services over LTE access networks. The VoLGA documents are available for download at www.volga-forum.com.
 
"The VoLGA Forum member companies have worked hard to rapidly complete the specifications, accomplishing the work in less than nine months,” said Uwe Janssen, Senior Vice President, T-Mobile core networks at Deutsche Telekom. “We are pleased with the broad industry support for the VoLGA effort, and look forward to upcoming product releases from the vendor community."
 
VoLGA, or Voice over LTE via Generic Access, will enable mobile operators to:

• Bring voice and SMS services over LTE radio access networks and femtocells.
• Support new revenue-generating applications over LTE, such as IMS combinational services and the Rich Communications Suite (RCS).
• Provide an improved overall user experience capitalizing on the performance advantages of LTE.
• Navigate a smooth transition to IMS telephony.
• Launch data-only LTE devices (USB dongles, netbooks etc.) leveraging the existing SMS-based customer care applications such as remote device management, configuration updates and SMS-based service announcements.

"VoLGA presents a viable way forward that doesn’t require a re-architecture of the network. VoLGA potentially provides LTE operators with a low-cost method of getting voice and SMS—the two highest drivers of mobile revenues—onto LTE,” said Brian Partridge, research director at Yankee Group. “One of the reasons you haven’t seen a lot of operators get behind VoLGA is because they are currently vetting a number of different solutions and gain nothing by publicly backing VoLGA at this stage in LTE’s development. The work of the VoLGA Forum and the support of much of the LTE eco-system and T-Mobile will go a long way to ensure VoLGA gets a shot at providing the bridge that many LTE committed operators will require on the road to IMS."
 
The VoLGA Forum has 21 member companies including Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom, Ditech Networks, GENBAND, HTC, Huawei, Kineto Wireless, LG Electronics, Mavenir, Motorola, Nortel, Samsung, Sonus, Starent Networks, Tecore Networks, Ulticom, WiChorus and ZTE.
 
For companies interested in participating in the VoLGA Forum, please contact us at info@volgaforum.com.