Star Telecom Alliance Resources Inc., the Filipino manufacturer of mobile phone brand Starmobile, teamed up with Smart Communications Inc. to offer Voice-over-LTE-capable handsets to the local market.
“This is a momentous event and Starmobile is proud to be part of this pioneering effort,” Starmobile chief operating officer Michael Chen said.
“Today, high quality voice calls like you never thought possible is now a reality. With the new and affordable Starmobile FeatureSmart Evo 1, we are making this world-class, cutting-edge technology accessible to our fellow Filipinos,” he said.
PLDT-Smart chief technology and information advisor Joachim Horn said VoLTE would be the platform of the future in terms of improving the quality of mobile phone voice service.
“We are excited to partner with Starmobile to start bringing VoLTE-capable handsets to the Philippine market,” Horn said.
VoLTE, unlike regular calls made on existing 2G or 3G networks, uses 4G LTE connectivity to send and receive voice data. This means that apart from static-free calls, VoLTE is capable of ‘Fast Call Setup’ thus eliminating the usual 5- to 10-second wait time users experience when placing a call.