Optus rolls out VoLTE in major Australian cities

Optus has started the roll out of the latest in voice call technology in major Australian cities. The telco announced on Monday that it has commenced delivering VoLTE, or Voice over LTE, across its 4G Plus mobile network.

Instead of using 3G connection during voice calls, Optus subscribers will be able to use 4G network. Up until the rollout, only data services were available over 4G. So when subscribers made a voice call, they were dropped from 4G connectivity to 3G.

“VoLTE provides customers a number of benefits including high definition quality voice calls, faster call connections and the ability for customers to multitask on their device while browsing and making a call over 4G connection,” Dennis Wong, Optus managing director of Networks, said in a statement.

“We’ve been testing and tweaking VoLTE for the best customer experience and we’re excited Optus customers will start to see the benefits of this technology on our 4G Plus network.”

VoLTE lets voice calls connect faster and in higher quality. Unlike using 3G networks, calls on 4G can allow data use at the same time.

“We’ve all been on a call when we’ve needed to quickly look up the address of a restaurant or download a file from an email. With VoLTE, this will all be a lot faster and easier because you’ll stay on a 4G connection,” Wong explained.

VoLTE is available for postpaid consumers and SMB customers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra CBD metro areas. Subscribers need compatible handsets to take advantage of Optus’ VoLTE. As for now, the first devices available with VoLTE are Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. It plans to include more devices in the future.

Last week, Optus revealed the pricing for the English Premier League 2016/17 season packages. The telco has nabbed exclusive streaming rights for the football games from Foxtel last year.

Read: Optus announces streaming packages for English Premier League 2016/17 season