With 4G taking the scene across India with happy faces seeing download speeds around 40+ Mbps. There is no doubt that 4G means data at a much faster rate. The Critical question is will the voice quality that was challengeable for OTT SKYPE players whatsapp in 3G etc improve in 4G. We need to have a closer look at how the protocol works here.
Irrespective of 3G or 4G the protocol used here is called Best effort.OTT uses the best effort protocol for Voice.
Best-effort delivery describes a network service in which the network does not provide any guarantees that data is delivered or that a user is given a guaranteed quality of service level or a certain priority.
In a best-effort network all users attain best-effort service, meaning that they obtain unspecified variable bit rate and delivery time, depending on the current traffic load. It can be contrasted with reliable delivery, which can be built on top of best-effort delivery (possibly without latency and throughput guarantees), or with circuit switching schemes which maintain a defined, continuous quality of service.
The postal service delivers letters using a best-effort delivery approach. The delivery of a certain letter is not scheduled in advance – no resources are preallocated in the post office. The service will make their "best effort" to try to deliver a message, but the delivery may be delayed if too many letters arrive to a postal office suddenly. The sender is not informed if a letter has been delivered successfully.
Conventional telephone networks are not based on best-effort communication, but on circuit switching. During the connection phase of a new call, resources are reserved in the telephone exchanges, or a busy signal informs the user that the call is blocked due to lack of free capacity. An ongoing phone call can never be interrupted due to overloading of the network, and is guaranteed constant bandwidth.
