VoLTE era has come: AT&T shuts down 3G

It is well known that AT&T shut down its 3G WCDMA network on Febrary 22nd; and this has implications on worldwide networks as well. Many worldwide operators had 3G WCDMA roaming agreement with AT&T. This means that when a non-US person travelled to the US, could make and receive voice calls using AT&T 3G WCDMA infrastructure. Since 3G sunset, this is not going to happen anymore.

So, what does it mean and how this is affecting many networks around the world? The natural fix for this situation is to enable VoLTE in the home network and activate VoLTE roaming with some US operator. This implies that many operators will need to speed up their VoLTE adoption plan in order to allow their users to roam in the US; making and receiving VoLTE calls. This topic is covered in the Q&A section of AT&T 3G sunset.

As you can see in the map below, courtesy of GSMA, many countries have still a way to go before they have fully implemented VoLTE.

While there will be still other options such as making voice and video calls over OTT services such as Facetime, Whatsapp, Telegram, etc; there is no doubt this decision will speed up VoLTE adoption worldwide. We should expect that more and more carriers enable their VoLTE networks in the following weeks as a way to provide a seamlees voice roaming serives for their users travelling to the US.

Note:?All views expressed on this article are my own and does not necessairly represent the opinion of my current employeer