EE has announced that it will be launching its Voice-over-WiFi service by end of this year – possibly as early as autumn – and using it users will be able to make high-quality voice calls using their home or corporate Wi-Fi connection.
One of the features of the service is that customers will not require any third-party app to be installed to avail this feature. They will be able to utilise the phone’s dialer to place a call – meaning that the phone will retain its full functionality even in areas that do not have a mobile signal.
Everything Everywhere claims that its service will offer higher quality of voice calls and will be far more reliable than other services that currently offer the same features such as Skype. EE claims that even a basic Wi-Fi connection would be just fine to place a call using its voice-over-WiFi service.
Tom Bennett, EE’s director of network services, while speaking at an event at one of company’s testing labs said that the service will help reduce customer frustration resulting from poor or no cellular coverage.
Bennett gave example of home and offices where mobile coverage isn’t at its best at all times. In such cases, people can place high-quality calls using Wi-Fi and then when required, they can easily switch over to cellular connection.
One of the other reasons behind this innovation was that EE was trying to make up for areas that are not well-served through EE’s 2G, 3G and 4G coverage.
“There are going to be places where we don’t currently penetrate,” he said notes The Telegraph. “I’m confident I run the best mobile network in the UK, but equally I can’t cover everywhere, so part of voice-over-WiFi is prioritising the best customer experience.”
Bennett also revealed that EE is working on enabling voice calls and text messages over LTE (4G). Customers won’t be realizing the difference, but the company will be able to provide more services in future.
However, one thing does stick out though! EE revealed that not all phones will be supported by the service as the technology requires some key components as well as firmware capabilities and not all phones available today have all required things.
