South Africa’s Vodacom makes country’s 1st VoWiFi call

Details: Tom Jackson; Category: Wireless Networks; 20 August 2015; 9345 views

South African market leading operator Vodacom has claimed to have made the first ever commercial voice over WiFi (voWiFi) call, saying the move to use WiFi technology will mean better calling quality for its customers.

The operator said by effectively integrating WiFi into its network as another voice carrier it could ensure a seamless voice experience regardless of whether a customer is using 2G, 3G, 4G or WiFi.

The first call was made at the company’s Midrand office and placed by network engineering officer Beverly Ngwenya to chief technology officer Andries Delport. The service is now live across the Vodacom network.

“No matter how prepared you are when you switch on a new service; it’s always a little nerve-wracking. The first thing I did was call Andries to let him know we’d been successful and everything was working exactly as planned,” said Ngwenya.

Delport said the company’s network team was always working hard to ensure it was one-step ahead and leading the adoption of new mobile technology.

“This was the case with voice over LTE, which we launched earlier this year, as well as when we first launched our LTE/4G network in 2012.

Voice over WiFi is the next step in ensuring the best quality voice calls for our customers,” he said.

“Aside from seamless call quality there are a number of consumer benefits that come with WiFi calling. One of the most significant is the ability to make a call using your cellphone number with no need for additional apps.”

The service differs from other applications that allow voice calling over a data network in that it utilises the built-in voice dialling feature of the phone and a user’s normal cellphone number to make a call.

Only a small number of test Samsung Galaxy S6 devices in South Africa currently have the ability to make voWiFi calls, but Vodacom said it is working closely with Samsung on a software update, to be released to the public once final testing is complete.

Calls over a WiFi network will be billed using existing minutes, with no extra data costs incurred. The new technology forms part of Vodacom’s ongoing network investment programme, which has seen the company spend ZAR22.5 billion over the last three years to boost quality.