At the CCA (Competitive Carriers Association) Global Expo 2014, Ron Marquardt, VP of Technology at Sprint told the audience that voice performance on Sprint’s CDMA network is already comparable to VoLTE (Voice over LTE) in terms of spectral efficiency. He added that in the near-term, Sprint will be focusing on voice-over-WiFi instead. Not surprisingly, Sprint recently launched a VoWiFi (Sounds good, right? Patent pending) client created by Taqua. The program currently ships pre-loaded on four Sprint smart phones and can be downloaded on older models. When a user connects to a WiFi hotspot, calls are automatically routed through WiFi instead of the cellular network. The user however, does have the option to disable the client. Sprint is focusing on VoWiFi because poor indoor coverage is a problem for many mobile subscribers, especially in large office buildings. Many carriers are addressing this via DAS and small cell solutions, but routing calls over WiFi is a much more cost effective solution. This isn’t to say that CDMA is dead though. “CDMA is going to die, but not anytime soon. Sprint has invested heavily in the technology, and retiring it in the near term would be an accounting nightmare,” said Marquardt. “80% of network traffic already moves over WiFi networks, voice-over-WiFi is the next logical step. Sprint will eventually move to an all-IP voice network, but that’s far into the future.”
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