As both cellular operators in the country strive to outdo each other in a bid to capture a bigger chunk of a near-saturated market, Ooredoo Qatar announced last month that it has successfully implemented Voice over LTE (VoLTE) on its network and was gearing up to launch the feature commercially in 2016. Ooredoo claims this will make it the first operator in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to introduce VoLTE across a substantial part of its nationwide network.
Vodafone, too, says that it is pursuing VoLTE plans. But it feels the penetration of VoLTE-enabled smartphones in Qatar is currently limited and is instead prioritising network upgrades, expansion of 4G coverage, 4G+ and better connectivity in the desert. “With the increase in penetration of smartphones supporting VoLTE, we see this service becoming increasingly relevant in the coming days,” said a company spokesperson.
By the looks of it, 2016 is the year when consumers who are still using 3G phones will finally start to feel the need to upgrade. The prices for 4G-enabled phones are lower than ever (QAR500 or less levels), and carriers in Qatar have been consistently upgrading their networks, with much of the improvements revolving around 4G LTE.
One of the benefits of VoLTE is faster call setups, but the real selling points of the technology are better voice quality on calls (improved HD Voice, which Ooredoo has already been offering since 2012) and the ability to browse the Internet while on call. The functionality is expected to come at no extra charge to the user.
HD Voice – also known as Wideband Audio – extends the frequency range of audio signals that are transmitted over the network, resulting in better voice quality. The frequency range available on traditional mobile networks is 300Hz to 3.4 KHz. HD Voice improves this significantly, offering a range of 50Hz to 7KHz (the frequency of a typical human voice can range between 80Hz to 14KHz). The extended frequency range that HD Voice offers results in noticeably better call quality.
The technology works seamlessly, switching between VoLTE and the traditional 3G network as needed, without any interruptions. It also has no impact on the data services being offered by the carrier, as VoLTE works over reserved data bandwidth that is not used for mobile data services. There is a caveat though: For HD Voice to work, both users must be in a VoLTE area, be on the same network and be using phones that can support the feature.
Ooredoo said it is working with mobile phone manufacturers to ensure that their devices are already supporting VoLTE once it goes live in 2016. Generally speaking, people who have bought 4G phones in the past couple of years should be able to benefit from the feature.
There are over 3.3 million mobile phone subscriptions in Qatar, according to The World Bank, and the fierce competition between Vodafone and Ooredoo to get a bigger share of this pie has prompted rapid evolution of mobile phone services in Qatar.
Ostensibly, both the operators have also been dealing with declining bottom lines. In December, Vodafone Qatar replaced its CEO Kyle Whitehill after the company failed to turn into a profitable entity, despite earlier projections suggesting it would become so by the end of 2015. In an interview with Bloomberg, Whitehill had blamed Qatar’s slowing population growth for the firm’s failure to meet targets and had said they do not expect to make profit before 2017. Earlier in October, Ooredoo had replaced its CEO Nasser Mohammed Marafih, following declining profits, primarily due to issues in other markets that Ooredoo operates in.
With such fierce competition, the focus of both operators in the past couple of years has been to improve connectivity and offer faster and better 4G services.
The 4G service for mobile phones was first made available by Ooredoo in October 2013, for a monthly surcharge of QAR60. In February 2014, Ooredoo announced that it would no longer charge consumers for access to its 4G services. Later that year, in June, Vodafone rolled out its own 4G service.
Since then both networks have been consistently one-upping each other, improving the speeds that they offer on their networks. Currently, both services promise theoretical speed limits of up to 375 megabits per second for compatible devices. While the competition has resulted in lower call rates, it has not, however, translated into significantly lower mobile data prices from the 3G era.
- The EDGE