Verizon Wireless is gearing up to roll out its
Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service over its cellular network. Its planned service will be going live over the next few weeks, with the higher-quality HD Voice calling accompanied by a simplified video calling service built directly into the phone dialer, allowing users to seamlessly switch between voice-only and video calls.
While earlier reports state it will be using the AMR-wideband standard for HD Voice calls, as well as being interoperable with similar services by competitors, Verizon's latest news
release seemingly shows a more limited vision. HD Voice and Video Calling will apparently only work when "both people are in the Verizon 4G LTE coverage area and are using VoLTE-enabled smartphones from Verizon," suggesting that inter-carrier HD Voice calls won't be available at launch, but may be enabled some time in the future.
Verizon is relatively late to market with VoLTE, with
AT&T and
T-Mobile both offering the service to their customers. Despite being behind, Verizon is skipping the market-by-market gradual service launch, instead opting to make it available nationally to anyone using a VoLTE-equipped phone.