The cabinet's approval of National Telecom Policy 2012 has allowed voice over Internet telephony (VoIP), which will help Reliance Industries that has pan-India 4G licenses to offer Voice-over-LTE services.
This will be a big blow for 4G operators without pan-India licenses.
The opening up of VoIP will be a big boost for RIL as it will look at launching 4G offering both data and voice services. There will be no need to buy an existing telecom operator to become a full mobile service provider.
The move to allow VoIP in India will enhance affordability to consumers and with pan-India license and spectrum Reliance industries will be in commanding position in the space.
RIL's LTE with data and voice will become a compelling combination for bandwidth hungry customers in India. Globally VoIP is a popular medium, but India is a late comer. Presently, Indian government allows VoIP calls to a telephone under strict conditions.
However, Indian authorities allow VoIP calls between computers within the country's borders and between a computer in India and a telephone (fixed or wireless) outside India.
With VoIP in place, mobile phone users can use their handsets to call other phone users through the Internet. Analysts say that allowing VoIP will allow more flexibility and new competition to emerge through non-facilities based providers.
Furthermore, it will also allow for a wholesale market to emerge, which does not really completely exist today. However, analysts are of view that the full adoption of VoIP will not affect tariffs.
RIL, which is about to foray into the telecom sector with its pan-India 4G-LTE launch can now offer VoLTE over its network. The VoLTE launch will assist the company to add business and it will become another strong revenue stream for RIL.
Three major technical components are needed to launch commercial VoLTE services and that are IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Call Session Control Function (CSCF), VoLTE-capable Wireless Voice Application Servers (VAS) and handsets with Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) capabilities.
A Sethuraman, executive director, Huawei Technologies, said: "Voice over LTE will be a major break-through for all operators who want to launch voice service using their LTE network. Operators with enough spectrum can offer high definition voice to customers. Recent tests suggest that quality of VoLTE services is excellent."
Top three VoLTE (Voice over LTE) vendors in first quarter of 2012 are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. With approval of complete VoIP, these companies will see a great business opportunity in the Indian market.