Battery life on voice over LTE second-generation chipsets has significantly improved, showing growing maturity of the technology, according to a new test report by Spirent Communications.
Spirent tested first and second generation VoLTE devices on MetroPCS’ LTE network, and concluded that the newer LG Spirit 4G showed a 35% improvement in power consumption over the first generation LG Connect 4G.
For VoLTE calls, the difference in power drain between the two devices reflected a 35% improvement from the first generation to the second. Larger battery capacity on the newer LG Spirit means an overall battery life improvement of 122% for VoLTE calls, Spirent said.
For CDMA voice calls, the second-generation LG Spirit 4G showed an 18% improvement in current drain; combining that with a 38% bigger battery capacity leads to a 75% overall improvement in battery life for CDMA voice calls.
“If you compare the battery life on this newer device making VoLTE calls to a previous generation of the device making CDMA calls, they’re comparable in the battery life,” said Rich McNally, director of service experience for Spirent. “That’s important for a few reasons – one of them being that if you are an operator that is rolling VoLTE out, and you want to convince a subscriber to adopt the new phone, if you’re able to say the battery life with VoLTE calls is comparable to what you were previously experiencing, then you’re going to have a better chance of getting new subscribers to adopt that new technology.”
McNally said that the tests also show the rapid maturation of VoLTE technology.
Spirent also tested VoIP calls using Skype on LTE, which required more power than either of the other voice call options. CDMA calls used an average of 151 milliamps on the second-generation device, the VoLTE calls required about 232 mA, and the average current drain for Skype was 258 mA. However, even that figure was an improvement of 33% over the power drain on the first-generation device. When the larger battery capacity was factored in, there was a 125% improvement in battery life for Skype calls made over LTE.
Spirent also tested simultaneous voice and data calls, and compared the use of CDMA for voice/LTE for data and VoLTE for voice/LTE for data on the LG Spirit.
The VoLTE/LTE combination used 11% less power, which translated to an additional 30 minutes of voice-data usage. Ardeshir Ghanbarzadeh, product manager for Spirent and author of the testing report, said that might be attributed to the device using only one LTE radio for both voice and data connectivity, versus having both an active CDMA radio for the voice connection and the LTE radio for data.
Spirent conducted the tests conducted in the Dallas metro area, and the devices used support both CDMA and VoLTE voice calls. Current drain and power consumption samples were taken at two separate locations.
Read the full report here from Spirent.
