3G. Wireless Communication Solutions

Verizon Wireless will upgrade of its mobile phone service to CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Revision A, that will enable it to offer VoIP calling. The new deployment of incremental hardware and software upgrades will be provided by Lucent Technologies.

Verizon and Lucent said they completed live, over-the-air EV-DO Rev. 1 calls last summer and since then have conducted live VoIP and video telephony calls utilizing the feature.

“EV-DO Rev. A enables users to receive data at speeds up to 3.1 Mbps and send data at speeds of up to 1.9 Mbps,” the announcement read. “These increased forward and reverse link data speeds reduce data latency and will enable operators such as Verizon Wireless to deliver VoIP and other multimedia services.”

Verizon said EV-DO Rev. A will help it introduce new services like messaging and enhanced push-to-talk features. Lucent, which is in the midst of a merger with Alcatel, deployed initial EV-DO infrastructure for Verizon Wireless. Financial terms of the new deployment were not disclosed.

The new deployment of incremental hardware and software upgrades will be provided by Lucent Technologies. The EV-DO Rev.A will help in introducing new services like instant messaging and e enhanced push-to-talk features. The midst of a merger with Alcatel, Lucent, will install the initial EV-DO infrastructure for Verizon Wireless.

Yet the company did not declare the financial terms about this new installment.

Mobile operators the world over fleece their customers for making roaming calls and for making international calls. However, all this could soon change. Using popular services such as Skype, users can make international calls and talk for unlimited lengths of time, for a flat monthly fee of around $20 or less.

This has started in Europe where Italian operator 3 Italia, has introduced a VOIP service in February this year. For around 5 cents per hour – a flat monthly fee of around $18 - subscribers can call fixed-line phones in Japan, South Korea, Australia and most of Western Europe, and both fixed and mobile numbers in the United States, China, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Since it needs a broadband Internet connection, VOIP works well only on mobile phones that use high-speed third-generation networks, making the technology particularly attractive to 3 Italia, which does not have a second-generation network. But mobile VOIP is also potentially appealing to the bigger mobile phone companies that, in addition to underused 3G networks, have older networks clogged with traffic.

For several years, companies like Skype have been using VOIP to offer free calls between computers, and in the process they have stolen traffic from traditional fixed-line phone companies. In the hands of mobile phone service providers, the same technology raises the stakes. According to a report by the Boston-based consultancy Pyramid Research, $200 billion of fixed-line phone traffic could move to mobile networks in the coming years.

Read more: Trends of VoIP via Cellphones