In May, we announced AT&T’s initial launch of Voice over LTE service, or VoLTE, in a handful of markets across the U.S. Today, AT&T has rolled-out VoLTE and HD Voice in select areas in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, with more to come.
Our internal testing shows the VoLTE network performance is strong. In our launched areas, we’ve tested how easily consumers can place a VoLTE call (accessibility) and how likely they are to stay connected to the VoLTE network during calls (retainability).
During the month of November, this internal testing showed an average of better than 99 percent in both accessibility and retainability overall.
While these are just early, internal measurements, we’re encouraged to see the network performing so well. We are committed to delivering an outstanding customer experience with our VoLTE rollout, and will continue to optimize, test and expand our VoLTE coverage throughout 2015. We also expect to see more VoLTE-capable devices available by year’s end and next year, as well.
VoLTE includes a feature that AT&T’s customers have enjoyed for years – the ability to simultaneously talk and surf the web on their phone. It brings that same functionality, but with ultra-fast 4G LTE data speeds. VoLTE also allows us to offer higher audio quality for calls through HD Voice*. HD Voice produces more natural sounding audio by extending the frequency range of the audio signals, resulting in remarkably clearer calls. I think you’ll be delighted by what you hear.
Recently, we announced our plans to work with Verizon to allow our customers to enjoy that clear audio quality and video calling features when placing VoLTE calls to Verizon customers, and vice versa. We’re working with other wireless carriers on this same functionality, too.
For more information, or to check if HD Voice is available in your area, visit www.att.com/hdvoice.
*Limited availability in select markets. May not be available in your area. Deployment ongoing. Both parties on the call must have an AT&T HD Voice capable device, be located in an AT&T HD Voice coverage area, and have HD Voice set up on their AT&T account. HD Voice will be available at no additional cost. Additional restrictions apply. Learn more at www.att.com/hdvoice.
