NSN White paper

November 2013

From Voice over IP

to Voice over LTE

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2.

VoLTE markets

3.

VoLTE technology

3.1

3.1.1 VoLTE talk time

3.1.2 VoLTE service quality

3.1.2 VoLTE coverage

3.2 V
 oLTE traffic considerations in
network design

3.2.1 Quality of Service

3.2.2 Use of radio resources

3.2.3 Signaling capacity

3.2.4 IP packet forwarding capacity

4.

Cellular Voice over IP alternatives

4.1 OTT VoIP services

4.2 Best effort SIP VoIP

10

4.3 OTT VoIP performance in LTE networks 10

4.3.1 OTT VoIP user experience

10

4.3.2 OTT VoIP user experience

11

VoLTE user experience

5. VoLTE comparison with VoIP

alternatives in LTE

13

6. Conclusions

14

7.

15

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About Smart Labs

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1. Introduction
The speed with which operators have adopted Long Term Evolution
(LTE) and the rapid growth of LTE subscriptions in advanced markets
are testament to the technologys success. In May 2013, the Global
mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) reported 175 commercial LTE
networks. At the end of 2012, there were already close to 70 million
LTE subscriptions across the globe.
LTE has become a truly mobile access method for various data
applications and services. The first LTE devices were modems such
as USB dongles for PCs, yet today, most LTE devices belong to
the smartphone category. Voice is naturally a key service for a LTE
smartphone user, but in most of todays commercial LTE networks,
voice is still based on traditional Circuit Switched (CS) voice in 2G/3G
networks. However, this is not only an issue of network readiness, as
according to GSA, of the 261 LTE smartphones announced at the end
of March 2013, only a few currently support VoLTE. As LTE network
coverage continues to expand, the next important step for operators
is to deploy a seamless voice over LTE (VoLTE) service.
Voice is still a major source of revenue for operators, even in the most
advanced mobile broadband markets. This means that operators must
carefully plan how their voice and mobile broadband businesses are
developed. Over the top (OTT) Voice over IP (VoIP) is an alternative to
CS voice for many subscribers, because wide coverage HSPA and
LTE networks and operators mobile broadband data services enable
mobile use of free OTT VoIP services. However, VoLTE brings many
benefits to help operators ensure their voice service remains the most
attractive solution for most mobile subscribers.
This paper introduces selected VoLTE technology features that
affect the user experience and network performance. There are
numerous existing white papers that, for example, describe VoLTE
architecture, compare deployment alternatives or evaluate power
consumption of VoLTE smartphones. This paper differs by describing
those VoLTE features that can improve the user experience and
network performance compared with OTT VoIP services such as
Skype or alternative SIP VoIP solutions. It is recommended that VoLTE
smartphones are tested beyond basic VoLTE Inter-Operability Testing
(IOT) in order to evaluate VoLTE smartphone performance and VoLTE
competitive advantages against alternative solutions.

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2. VoLTE markets
Mobile broadband (HSPA and LTE) is going mainstream and LTE is
the most rapidly adopted mobile technology ever, with the GSA
forecasting 234 commercial LTE networks in 83 countries by the end
of 2013. LTE smartphones are commonly available in many markets,
but VoLTE is still emerging. This is because most operators initially
offer CS voice for LTE smartphone subscribers using CSFB (Circuit
Switched Fallback) in LTE-GSM/WCDMA and LTE-CDMA networks
or SVLTE (Simultaneous Voice and LTE) in LTE-CDMA networks.
The traditional operator safe havens of voice and messaging have
been under attack by OTT service providers over the last few years.
Therefore, operators strategies for maintaining profitable business
include developing the mobile voice service combined with an
enhanced end-user experience. The whole telecommunications
industry thus has a strong focus on VoLTE and the evolution of rich
communication.
LG U+, SKT (Korea) and metroPCS (USA) were the first operators to
start a commercial VoLTE service in August 2012. KT (Korea) was next
to launch in October 2012. Currently, the Korean VoLTE market is
developing the most swiftly, with about 2.8 million VoLTE subscribers
in March 2013 and a high monthly growth rate. Furthermore, many
operators worldwide have also been testing VoLTE.
Korea VoLTE subscribers
1600
1400

Thousands

1200
1000

SKT

800

LGU+
KT

600
400
200
0
Jan

Feb

Mar

2013

Fig. 1. Korea VoLTE subscribers

Source: KCC, April 2013

Koreas position as the leading VoLTE market is also highlighted by the

growing selection of VoLTE smartphones available. Currently, these
VoLTE smartphones are dedicated for Korean operators and networks,
with all these Korean VoLTE devices running Android.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that VoLTE is strongly linked to the
evolution of RCS (Rich Communication Services), because both are IP
Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based services. In the first phase, RCS
provides contacts, chat, file sharing and video sharing services. RCS
has been launched by operators in Korea, Europe and the USA.
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3. VoLTE technology
3.1 VoLTE user experience
3.1.1 VoLTE talk time
Battery life is a top concern for todays smartphone users. Broadband
radios, large touch screen displays and gigahertz multi-core
processors consume a lot of energy. Therefore, optimizations that
improve battery life are very important for both mobile operators
and smartphone vendors. The first VoLTE implementations received
much public attention, because the VoLTE talk time seemed to be
worse than with traditional CS voice services. However, the early
implementations were not optimized for low current consumption.
The main components affecting current consumption during voice
calls are cellular radio and voice codec components. Usually the display
is turned off by a trigger from either a proximity sensor or timer. If a
VoLTE audio codec is integrated to the modem processor, VoLTE power
consumption can be lower than with OTT VoIP applications, which are
running in the application processor.
Cellular radio transmission and reception can be optimized
significantly to reduce energy consumption. The biggest energy
saving is achieved by shutting down the transmission and reception
whenever possible. During a voice call, this is possible by using
Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) and Discontinuous Reception (DRX).
Standard voice is packetized in 20 ms intervals i.e. each voice packet
includes 20 ms of voice. Cellular radio resources are divided in the
time domain into Transmission Time Intervals (TTI), which in LTE are as
short as 1 ms. Because LTE is broadband technology, it is possible to
send one voice packet within one TTI. Therefore, a VoLTE smartphone
can shut down transmission and reception between voice packets.
Further opportunities for DTX/DRX can be achieved using packet
aggregation, which means that two voice packets are sent in one TTI
every 40 ms.

20 ms

TTI
1 ms

UE

eNB
UE discontinous
reception
(20 ms DRX cycle)

40 ms

VoIP
packets

Sleep mode
between voice
packets saves energy

TTI
1 ms

Two VoIP
packets
aggregated

UE
UE discontinous
reception
(40 ms DRX cycle)

eNB
Sleep mode
between voice
packets saves energy

Fig. 2. Overview of VoLTE transmission and DTX/DRX.

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3.1.2 VoLTE service quality

VoLTE supports mobile high definition (HD) voice i.e. the Adaptive
Multi Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) codec, which is already used in tens
of WCDMA/HSPA networks as well as in a few GSM networks. The
wideband codec improves voice quality by transmitting a broader
spectrum of human voice frequencies than narrowband codecs.
Perceived voice quality depends on the audio codec used and the
mouth-to-ear delay, as well as transmission impairments such as jitter,
bit errors and packet loss. VoLTE improves performance, particularly
during busy hours, by establishing a dedicated Guaranteed Bit Rate
(GBR) bearer for voice. The GBR bearer offers a low latency and low
jitter connection.
Voice service experience is further affected by the call-setup
performance and call reliability. LTE can improve mobile voice callsetup time significantly due to the high capacity and low latency LTE
radio access available for the signaling connection between the UE and
voice service core.

3.1.3 VoLTE coverage

In poor radio conditions, data can be received with errors. This
effect is particularly visible at the cell edge due to the limited UE
transmission power. In order to improve the reliability of VoLTE packet
transmission in the uplink direction, it is possible to use a technique
called Transmission Time Interval (TTI) bundling. This relies on sending
a few redundant versions of the same set of bits in consecutive
TTIs. TTI bundling is estimated to provide 2 - 4 dB uplink coverage
improvement for VoLTE.
LTE coverage will not be as wide as, for example, GSM for several years.
When VoLTE service is deployed, mobility at the border of the LTE
coverage area with GSM/WCDMA is solved with Single Radio Voice Call
Continuity (SRVCC) technology, which differentiates the VoLTE service
experience from alternative VoIP services.

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3.2 V
 oLTE traffic considerations in
network design
3.2.1 Quality of Service
Traffic between the UE and the network is carried over bearers, which
can have different QoS characteristics. When a LTE UE attaches to
the network for the first time, it will be assigned default bearers,
which will remain as long as the UE is attached. Typically, for an IMS/
VoLTE based network, there is a default bearer for IMS signaling and a
default bearer for Internet traffic. Both are non-Guaranteed Bit Rate
(non-GBR) bearers. IMS signaling bearer has higher priority. When a
VoLTE call is setup, a dedicated GBR bearer is established for the voice
connection. Thus, QoS differentiation must be taken into account
in VoLTE network design and dimensioning. In contrast, OTT VoIP
applications always run on the default bearer for Internet access and
therefore differentiated QoS cannot be guaranteed.

3.2.2 Use of radio resources

There are two options for scheduling of VoLTE packets over the radio
interface. Dynamic scheduling (DS) is designed for data applications.
DS enables efficient use of radio resources for bursty traffic, but due
to dynamic resource allocations, control channel information must
be sent along the data transmission both in uplink and downlink
directions. To overcome this, the LTE base station can use an
alternative scheduling method called Semi Persistent Scheduling (SPS),
which assigns predefined radio resources for the VoLTE user. SPS does
however, have some drawbacks. It must use fixed link adaptation and
a fixed resource block in the frequency domain, which prevents any
advanced link adaptation or scheduling. SPS is also not well suited
for mixed voice and data traffic, because fixed SPS allocations limit
data scheduling. Another method to reduce the control overhead is
packet aggregation, resulting in a 40 ms transmission interval. As a
conclusion, in realistic network deployments with mixed VoLTE and
data usage, instead of using SPS, the optimal solution is to use packet
aggregation with dynamic scheduling.
Use of Robust Header Compression (RoHC) with a GBR bearer will
reduce the user plane traffic by several bytes over the air interface.
For VoIP packets, the size of IP headers (IP/UDP/RTP) is larger than the
voice payload itself. RoHC can compress the header size from 40 bytes
to two or three bytes between the user device and base station. This
high compression ratio not only increases network capacity but also
provides coverage improvements for VoLTE users compared to OTT
VoIP of up to 3 dB due to the lower bandwidth required at the
cell edge.

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3.2.3 Signaling capacity

There is no frequent background keep-alive traffic associated with
IMS based services, which is an advantage over OTT VoIP services.
OTT VoIP apps (Viber, Skype, etc.) must maintain active sessions with
keep-alive messages in order to stay reachable for incoming calls.
These frequent keep-alive transactions eventually result in large
signaling load in the network. With IMS services, the client device
performs periodical re-registrations to the IMS, but the frequency
is significantly lower than that of OTT apps. A VoLTE service requires
additional signaling for setting up a dedicated GBR bearer to fulfill
the QoS requirement, but the expected network impact is low. It is
worth noting that smartphone platforms such as iOS, Android and
Windows Phone tend to have platform specific connections (e.g. to get
notifications and automatic software updates), which generate data
transactions and signaling load. The impact of VoLTE on signaling load
is therefore assumed to be negligible.

3.2.4 IP packet forwarding capacity

Generally, trends in mobile broadband traffic growth indicate that
voice will play a minor role in total traffic volume, with video content
and browsing being the main contributors to mobile data volumes.
Although VoLTE and OTT VoIP are not significant services when the
throughput capacity of network (bit/s capacity) is dimensioned, they
can have a relatively high effect on the dimensioning of IP packet
forwarding elements such as S/PGW (packet/s capacity).

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4. Cellular Voice over IP alternatives

OTT communication services are challenging traditional mobile
voice and messaging services. Therefore, operators must take OTT
communication services into account in their strategies. Operators
can compete with OTT services, but can also collaborate with OTT
service providers. In both cases, operators must understand how
the user experience with OTT services compares with the operator
communication services, including VoLTE. Operators should also
understand how the growing adoption and use of OTT communication
apps affects the mobile network.

4.1 OTT VoIP services

OTT refers to services provided independently over the mobile
operators Internet access services. Skype is probably the most well
known OTT VoIP service. This and many other VoIP services are today
commonly available from application stores for all major smartphone
platforms. Many OTT applications that support VoIP also include rich
communication features, such as instant messaging, file sharing,
presence and video calls.
Table. 1. Examples of OTT VoIP applications
SKYPE

VIBER

KAKAOTALK

FACETIME

TANGO

TuMe

Voice call

(X)

Group call

Video call

Group video call

Chat

Group chat

File sharing

All Files

Smartphones,
tablets

iOS, Android,
Windows Phone,
Blackberry,
Symbian

iOS, Android,
Windows
Phone,
Blackberry,
Symbian, Bada

iOS, Android,
iOS
Windows Phone,
Blackberry,
Bada

iOS, Android,
Windows
Phone

Other devices

PCs, TVs,
iPod touch,
PlayStation Vita,
Skype handsets,
Xbox One

PCs

iPod touch

PCs, iPod touch

PSTN interworking

Premium
services
available

Viber client
places a
regular call,
if VoIP is not
available

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Multimedia

Multimedia

iPod touch,
Mac PCs

X
Multimedia,
Dropbox
iOS, Android

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4.2 Best effort SIP VoIP

While commercial VoLTE is still emerging, operators can consider
offering VoIP services based on IMS infrastructure and SIP VoIP clients
over best effort mobile broadband access. Such a pre-VoLTE service
could be offered over LTE as well as over HSPA and Wi-Fi. The PreVoLTE phase is an opportunity to develop the SIP VoIP technology
and the VoIP business, particularly in markets with limited LTE
coverage or in markets missing standard VoLTE smartphones.
The availability of downloadable and configurable SIP compliant VoIP
clients is limited to major smartphone platforms and application
markets. For example, Bria and Acrobits are SIP VoIP clients, which are
available for both iOS and Android platforms.

4.3 OTT VoIP performance in LTE networks

This chapter includes some highlights of OTT VoIP performance based
on Smart Labs measurements and analysis.

4.3.1 OTT VoIP user experience

Voice quality is a very important criterion in providing a satisfactory
voice service. CS mobile voice has not been excellent, due, for
example, to quite a narrow voice spectrum. Wideband codecs improve
the quality and therefore wideband audio is used by some OTT VoIP
services. If we compare the voice quality in excellent radio conditions
in an empty cell by measuring the MOS (mean opinion score), some
OTT VoIP applications provide better speech quality and some provide
worse quality than CS voice.
Conversation quality depends on the mouth-to-ear delay. Latency of
mobile CS voice depends on network implementation details, including
physical distances between network elements. Typical CS voice latency
in commercial networks is 200 300 ms, which is good for smooth
conversation. OTT VoIP clients must have adequate jitter buffers
to manage the best effort quality in todays mobile broadband
networks. Furthermore, OTT VoIP services must have a connectivity
solution for the varying Network Address Translation (NAT) and firewall
environments of mobile networks. Therefore, OTT VoIP calls may have
to be routed via gateway nodes on the public Internet, which increases
the mouth-to-ear delay. Measurements show that OTT VoIP services
pose challenges in offering satisfactory conversation quality, even in a
very low latency LTE network.

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NAT traversal can be managed by OTT services, but the complex NAT
traversal solutions can increase call setup times. Measurements and
analysis show that OTT VoIP call establishment time varies a great
deal, in particular due to the NAT traversal protocols.
Battery life is also an important customer experience factor for
operators, because network settings affect smartphone current
consumption and users can detect the difference between mobile
service providers.
With VoIP services, the smartphone current consumption can be
measured during a call and during periods of user inactivity. Because
an average user can spend some tens of minutes in voice calls daily,
it is more important to compare the current consumption caused
by background activity of a VoIP application. Measurements show
that the background activity of different OTT VoIP applications varies
significantly, with a noticeable effect on the UE battery life time.
Current consumption during a OTT VoIP call depends mainly on the
hardware components of the smartphone, as in practice, HSPA or LTE
radio must be continuously in a high power connected state (Cell_DCH
or RRC connected respectively). On the other hand, VoLTE is specified
to support a connected state DRX during the call. Therefore, VoLTE is
expected to have lower current consumption during the call than any
OTT VoIP service.

4.3.2 OTT VoIP network impacts

Traffic characteristics during a VoIP call depends on the voice
packetization interval and silence suppression capability, as well as
other protocols that may be active while voice media is transmitted.
Average packet inter-arrival time (or packets per second rate) is
important for dimensioning high capacity packet forwarding elements
such as packet core gateway elements. OTT VoIP traffic can be
analyzed even though the content can be encrypted. Measurements
show that OTT VoIP apps can generate similar traffic to VoLTE with a
20 ms packetization interval. However, in some cases even a doubled
packet rate is generated.

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Another traffic characteristic is the average bit rate (kbit/s) during a

VoIP call. This is affected by the codec and IP overhead. Measurements
indicate that OTT VoIP applications can generate two to three times
the bit rate of 12.2 kbit/s AMR codec VoIP traffic. RTP/UDP/IPv4
overhead is 40 bytes per voice packet, which for example with
12.65 kbit/s AMR-WB voice results in around 29 kbit/s IP traffic in
one direction. The actual average bit rate with AMR can be significantly
less due to silence suppression. The gain of silence suppression
can be estimated assuming 60% voice activity. Currently, some OTT
VoIP applications support silence suppression, but not all of them yet
do so.
One of the key concerns of operators is the signaling load generated
by smartphones. Part of the load is caused by the mobile operating
system services, but a significant proportion is generated by online
applications. OTT communication services are particularly challenging,
because always-on reachability requires a persistent connection to
the network. OTT VoIP applications are a common reason for frequent
data transactions. These transactions include, for example, keepalive messages for the persistent connections, but there is also other
application specific activity. The exact behavior of the OTT apps
varies depending on the OS platform and the application version.
Measurements show that some OTT VoIP apps generate frequent data
transactions, which increase the signaling load in mobile networks.

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5. VoLTE comparison with VoIP

alternatives in LTE
The following table summarizes the expected key differences between
VoLTE and alternative VoIP services.
Table. 2. Comparison of VoLTE and VoIP alternatives
VoLTE

SIP VoIP

OTT VoIP

Voice quality-audio

Wideband codec

Wideband codec

Wideband codec

Voice quality latency

Minimal

Minimal. Potentially longer

jitter buffer.

Large variance due to traffic

routing, jitter buffers &
different packetization

Voice quality loaded cell

GBR bearer

Best effort

Best effort

Voice coverage

Optimized voice coverage with Lower voice quality at cell

TTI bundling
edge

Lower voice quality at cell

edge

Call setup time

Minimal

Minimal

Large variance due to NAT

traversal

Battery life talk time

20 and 40 ms DRX

No DRX

No DRX

Battery life standby time

Minimal activity in background

Minimal activity in
background

SIP call control.

SIP call control.

Policy control. Dedicated

bearer establishment

Policy control

Proprietary call control over IP.

Optional policy control

Signaling load background

activity

Minimal activity. Negligible

impact on smartphone
signaling load

Minimal activity. Negligible

impact on smartphone
signaling load

Frequent background activity

increases smartphone
signaling load

Traffic packet per second

20 ms packetization

20 ms packetization

Varies

Traffic bit per second

Coding rate + IP overhead.

Coding rate + IP overhead

Coding rate + IP overhead

User Experience

Frequent keep-alive and

presence activity

Network impact
Signaling call setup

ROHC over radio

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6. Conclusions
Operators need a voice evolution strategy, which must include the
right timing for the introduction of VoLTE, as well as a defined position
on OTT VoIP and alternative SIP VoIP. Strategic and product decisions
such as the selection of a device portfolio can be improved by having
exact information about device and service performance.
VoLTE is a standardized service and correct functional interworking
will be checked in IOT testing between device and network vendors.
However, the scope of IOT testing does not fully cover user experience
and measurements and analysis of network effects. In particular, the
comparison to OTT and other alternatives is missing.
Operators must understand the user experience differences
between VoIP alternatives and how the network should be designed,
dimensioned and configured for VoIP services. For example, VoLTE
talk time optimization is not straightforward and it is not enough to
simply check the device capabilities for VoLTE and DRX. Specialized
test methods are needed to verify the current consumption of VoLTE
with different network configurations and in different radio conditions.
Other special testing and analysis methods are also needed to verify
the user experience and network performance with different devices
and VoIP services.

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7. About Smart Labs

Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) opened its first Smart Lab in
2009, and has since established labs across North America, Europe
and Asia.
By engaging with all the players in the mobile ecosystem application
developers, smartphone manufactures and mobile operators the
labs bring the industry together to improve network performance.
Smart Labs support mobile network operators to find the ideal
balance between the best user experience and the lowest impact on
network performance.
The Smart Labs help clients implement technology improvements
with our two-phased project process. Each phase includes
self-funding performance guarantee, and delivers meaningful,
measurable benefits.
The Smart Labs pioneered consulting projects to capitalize on the
mobile eco system. Our library of templates goes beyond conventional
industry tests and tools to identify increases in network performance
and user experience.

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Nokia Solutions and Networks

P.O. Box 1
FI-02022
Finland
Visiting address:
Karaportti 3, ESPOO, Finland
Switchboard +358 71 400 4000
Product code C401-00874-WP-201311-1-EN
2013 Nokia Solutions and Networks. All rights reserved.
Public
NSN is a trademark of Nokia Solutions and Networks. Nokia is a registered
trademark of Nokia Corporation. Other product names mentioned in this
document may be trademarks of their respective owners, and they are
mentioned for identification purposes only.

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