VOLGA Stage 3 Specification Published

If you've been following my blog for a while you've probably noticed my support for Voice over LTE via GAN, or VOLGA for short. In case not and you are interested here's a link to a short intro and here a link to a whitepaper which I've recently written on the subject. It looks like the VOLGA forum has not been idle over summer and has continued working on the final stage 3 specification that contains all the nitty gritty details on messages, information elements, etc. Now in September 2009, the final version has been published which means all documents are together now to implement VOLGA. For the details, see here. Well done, I am looking forward to seeing the first implementations!

4 thoughts on “VOLGA Stage 3 Specification Published”

  1. Hi Martin,

    Have you seen any more detail on NSNs VoLTE solution that they’ve been crowing about? There is little available information, but it looks like they turn their 3G MSC into an odd SIP SBC, possibly one that translates SIP REGISTERs to MAP UPDATE_LOCATIONs (et al).

    This would require a SIP client on the handset and a dedicated APN (I assume) but it seemingly overlooks any CSLTE handoffs, although I guess seamless HSPALTE is possible (right?) so the call could transition transports without needing to be aware.

    An interesting alternative anyway.

  2. Hi Bruce,

    No, I haven’t seen any more details but I guess there must be a reason why NSN is so tight lipped about their solution. In my opinion proprietary solutions and solutions that can’t hand over to CS during a call are not the answer to the LTE voice problem.

    From a technology point of view I also think they’ve implemented some kind of SIP support in their MSC but it’s an opinion, I don’t have facts to back it up.

    Cheers,
    Martin

    typepad@sixapart.com wrote:

  3. @Bruce — It said to use SR-VCC to handover. Ultimately, the MSC-Server looks like an applications server from an IMS point of view. Lots of pros and cons, of course.

    Seperately, Volga appears to building support outside T-Mobile. Lots of people seem to like the solution, but aren’t ready to commit one way or the other yet. Fair bit of political maneuvering involved from what I understand.

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