After leaking the capability last month, Verizon prepaid customers officially have access to HD Voice, VoLTE and video calling features
Verizon Wireless continues to upgrade prepaid customers with access to new features, with the latest move the inclusion of high-definition voice and video calling capabilities.
The carrier said its branded prepaid customers can now place video calls, calls over Wi-Fi, six-way calling and access the internet when on voice calls from select devices. The capabilities are tied to the carrier’s HD Voice service, which includes voice over LTE that Verizon Wireless had mistakenly hinted to on its website last month.
To take advantage of the HD Voice and video calling services both parties on the call must be on compatible devices. Verizon Wireless noted the HD Voice service is accessible from “any known hot spot in the world,” with free calls to U.S. phone numbers and those to international numbers billed at long-distance rates.
Verizon Wireless said the HD Voice feature is available for no-contract customers on more than two dozen smartphones powered by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS platforms, though the video calling feature remains the domain of Android as Apple only allows native video calls using its FaceTime platform. The carrier earlier this year embedded the VoLTE-based HD Voice function into Apple devices running the device maker’s iOS 9.3 operating system, while the Wi-Fi calling version required a software upgrade.
Verizon Wireless is slowly shifting commercial voice services away from its legacy code division multiple access network toward its LTE platform in a move that will allow the carrier to eventually refarm spectrum from its 2G/3G networks. The carrier has already begun to siphon off 1.9 GHz spectrum used to support its CDMA2000 1x EV-DO 3G service for its LTE network, which is part of its recent LTE Advanced launch.
Verizon Wireless has said it plans to shut down its CDMA offerings by the end of 2019, which would allow the carrier to also refarm the 850 MHz spectrum it’s currently using to support legacy voice services.
In an attempt to bolster its languishing direct prepaid business, the carrier’s prepaid service gained a data throttling feature in July, which is similar to the “Safety Mode” launched earlier this year for its postpaid service. The prepaid feature allows customers to continue accessing data services at a reduced speed for no additional fee once they deplete their included data allotment. The data speed reduction will see network speeds limited to 128 kilobits per second, which the carrier noted was still fast enough to handle many basic mobile web functions.
Verizon Wireless lost 30,000 direct prepaid connections during the second quarter, which was an improvement compared to a loss of 126,000 prepaid connections the previous year. The carrier said its ability to tighten connection losses was attributed to new rate plans, which included making previous promotional plans permanent during the quarter that included more data to better compete in the hotly contested market.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter
