Barcelona, Spain: The MultiService Forum (MSF) announced yesterday at Mobile World Congress the first ever MSF/GSMA VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Interoperability Event scheduled for September 2011. The test event, which is backed by the GSMA as part of its VoLTE initiative, will be hosted by MSF and mobile operators Vodafone and China Mobile in the Vodafone Test and Innovation Centre in Dusseldorf, Germany, and the China Mobile Research Institute Laboratory in Beijing, China. The MSF is already seeing significant interest, with GENBAND, Huawei, ZTE, Cisco and WiChorus, a Tellabs Company sponsoring the VoLTE IOT, and several other vendors, including Alcatel-Lucent, Alepo, JDSU, and Samsung supporting the work.

The event builds on the major success of the previous Global MSF LTE Interoperability Event in March 2010 and reflects the MSF’s commitment to carrier driven interoperability events to validate key emerging standards and technologies.

The MSF VoLTE Interoperability test event will focus on validating key network interfaces to ensure multi-vendor deployment strategies for LTE/EPC/IMS technology. A key objective of the testing is to validate the GSMA’s technical recommendations for IMS-based VoLTE. Test scenarios include VoLTE basic interoperability, roaming and interconnection, non-LTE Access to EPC (e.g. GERAN/UTRAN), handover/relocation and Self Organizing Networks (SON).

The event will give operators the confidence that Voice over LTE is a foundation on which to build tomorrow’s voice and rich communication services.

“The GSMA is backing the MSF’s work on VoLTE and LTE roaming as it demonstrates further momentum for implementing a single, industry wide solution for voice and messaging services via IP,” said Dan Warren, Senior Director of Technology at the GSMA. “This will help promote multi-vendor interoperability, facilitate a broad ecosystem and drive vast economies of scale for LTE all over the world.”

“The direct participation of Vodafone and China Mobile, combined with industry sponsorship from GENBAND, ZTE, Cisco, WiChorus, a Tellabs Company, Alcatel-Lucent, Alepo, Huawei, JDSU and Samsung in driving towards this event highlights the significance of this technology for the telecommunications industry,” said Jim McEachern, MSF President. “The MSF and GSMA are working together to validate the standards that support it.”

To learn more about the MSF VoLTE IOT and find out how to participate in this event please visit the VoLTE webpage at http://www.msforum.org/interoperability/VoLTE.shtml or contact Ashley Wright at [email protected].