EE has announced live trials of phone calls over Wi-Fi and 4G as part of a GBP 275 million investment in voice to remove 'whitespots', and create 'zero defect' experience in UK's busiest areas. The Wi-Fi carrier grade service will allow people to make calls from their home, office, corporate or public Wi-Fi connection, and is scheduled to launch in autumn 2014. EE will also launch a trial of voice over LTE (VoLTE) 4G technology later in 2014 using 800 MHz spectrum. The trial will expand data and voice coverage, bringing service to a previously unconnected part of rural Oxfordshire. A full commercial launch of the capability will follow in 2015.
EE is busy upgrading voice existing voice infrastructure, with more than 6,000 2G masts upgraded with new equipment in the last 18 months and more than 2,000 3G masts having had their capacity doubled. EE has also introduced three key initiatives to improve phone calls for its 26 million customers - the capability of the MyEE App to identify when a device hits a whitespot, or 'no service' area, and ping the network to give its location; a nationwide target to halve the dropped call rate (DCR) in 2014; and the 'Platinum Project' which aims to create a 'zero defect' phone call experience for customers in the busiest parts of the UK. Trial areas for the project include the entirety of the M25 Orbital, Canary Wharf and The Southbank.
