Worst of the Week: VoLTE party!

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
The wireless industry is nothing if not good at running a copy machine. Few companies in the space ever have much of a “unique” advantage for long, despite all the claims of “world’s only” and “industry leading.” While those statements may have been true the second the room full of monkey’s managed to bang them out, they were no longer true once the celebratory bananas began flying.
This week we witnessed further proof of the industry’s mimicking nature, as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile US both jumped on the VoLTE bandwagon soon after AT&T Mobility announced plans to launch this elusive technology in the coming weeks.
(And here I was thinking that VoLTE was still months, if not years, away from being commercially viable.)
To recap: AT&T Mobility late last week announced it would launch VoLTE services in some markets across portions of Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin beginning today. That was followed earlier this week by Verizon Wireless announcing its own plans to launch VoLTE across its entire LTE network later this year. T-Mobile US saw how much fun these announcements were, and so later this week came out and said it had just launched VoLTE service in Seattle.
And boom! It’s a VoLTE party!
Now, the limited scope and timing of these announcements means that a vast majority of domestic wireless consumers will be VoLTE-less for at least the foreseeable future, and thus the immediate impact of this VoLTE-frenzy is more hype than reality. But, more importantly by having nearly all of the country’s nationwide operators (hello Sprint?) announce these “plans” at virtually the same time it waters down the impact of the announcements for all.
Here’s how I break it down: Finding someone in the office sitting on a copy machine to make a copy of their sitting “muscle” is quite shocking. Finding other co-workers doing the same thing moments later is just weird and may be a hint that it’s time to find a new office to work in.
Don’t get me wrong, people love parties, though I would say people are mixed on other people sitting on copy machines. But, people also need time to absorb the events of a party for that party to be memorable. A string of separate – but similar – parties thrown one after the other tricks the hung-over brain into thinking it was just one big binger, and I think we can all attest to the fact that few good things happen during a binger.
I would argue that the smartest person in the room on this VoLTE announcement topic is Sprint, even if that smart decision was not really a conscience decision. You see, Sprint can now come out at some point with its own VoLTE announcement – hopefully tied to some other industry-shaking announcement – and give that announcement some breathing room of its own. Sprint does indeed at some point need to fire up its copier and make some sort of VoLTE declaration, but now it has some time to make that announcement really mean something and to even try and make that announcement somewhat unique, or dare I say “industry leading.” And, if its rivals then try to crowd its party, they will look like they are following Sprint’s lead, and how often has that happened in recent history.
But, let’s not wait too long on this Sprint. While we all need some time to recover from whatever the hell happened last weekend, taking too long to get in on this party theme could make it seem like you have forgotten how to throw a party. And haven’t you heard? It’s a VoLTE party!
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Speaking of VoLTE news, Verizon Wireless may have been a bit off the mark when it headlined its announcement “Verizon details VoLTE rollout plans.” That press release/blog post did have some “details” about Verizon Wireless’ VoLTE plans, but to call it “detailed,” which in Verizon Wireless defense they did not, would be pushing it.
The carrier said the offering would be rolled out nationwide “later this year,” which by my Swatch could be anywhere from tomorrow to more than seven months from tomorrow. Verizon Wireless does say that the offering will include HD Voice, which is specific, but then sort of losses its specificity when it comes to which handsets will exactly have that HD Voice capability. This is probably not much of a concern if the service is not expected to launch until December as who knows what devices will be out by then. However, if the service is launching tomorrow, you would think at least one device could be mentioned beyond the mention that “select handsets” will have VoLTE enabled through a software update.
Verizon Wireless finishes up promising some cool features like video calling and the potential for the generically named rich communications suite, but again, beyond just mentioning those things, details are sparse. Oh well, at least the potential for more “details” to emerge provides us in the media with more fodder to continue hyping the launch. Hmmm, now that’s a pretty good detail.
–While I was frustrated by Verizon Wireless’ lack of VoLTE detail, I do give full props for the “XLTE” launch. As I touched on last week when rumors began circulating on Verizon Wireless set to announce its LTE spectrum-fortifying plans under the XLTE banner, it’s an awesome use of letters.
However, I am still concerned that rivals will see a need to out-do Verizon Wireless in this name game and pull out the “5G” card to the consternation of all, or at least to me. Please marketing teams, resist the urge.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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