AT&T likes VoIP on LTE

AT&T's chief marketing officer David Christopher says LTE, the successor to the existing GSM network, will make VoIP apps king of the hill. LTE's all-data approach and lower lag turns a voice call into an app just like anything else.

Christopher suggests that pricing may go down, since LTE should be less expensive for data than existing 3G solutions; currently, the HSPA data standard used by AT&T (and other carriers around the world) has had to bridge between cellular and data networks and has a shorter range to boot.

AT&T's reluctance to support VoIP on 3G networks stems from concerns about quality, said Christopher. Because of the way 3G is implemented, it is often "too lagged" for a natural conversation and is more likely to drop.

Christopher also ‘fessed up that AT&T's existing 3G network is congested, but the company is spending a lot of money to upgrade networks around the country.

Open-source geeks should note that AT&T is "monitoring" Android and seems to be content with lots of phone OSes in its existing lineup.

For more:
- Electronista tracks down AT&T's CMO for VoIP chat. Post.

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