Exclusive: Idea Cellular’s VoLTE Services Will Go Official for Public in Maharashtra and Gujarat First

Idea Cellular is the only top telecom operator yet to launch Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services based on 4G network to the consumers. While the company stated that it would be launching VoLTE services to its users in Q2 2018, there’s no official word on the same. Right now, the telco has opened the VoLTE services to its employees in various cities, but as per the information we received, Idea Cellular subscribers in Maharashtra and Gujarat will be able to see the VoLTE service on a compatible smartphone very soon. The service will be first rolled out in 18 cities including Nasik, Pune, Nagpur, Goa(Panjim), Aurangabad, Kolapur, Vasai, Virar, Ulhasnagar, Bhivandi, Ahmednagar, Solapur, Akola, Nanded, Surat, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Idea will be expanding the service to other circles and cities in a phased manner going forward.

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The biggest challenge for Idea Cellular will be the compatible device list. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India launched 4G services several months ago, but still, the supported device list is very smaller. Airtel’s list of VoLTE compatible smartphones has more than 100 devices, while Vodafone has over 50 devices. And yes, speaking about Reliance Jio, whatever the smartphone releases onto the market, it has support for Jio VoLTE. However, Idea Cellular has to follow the same mechanism as Airtel and Vodafone of adding service manually to a smartphone, which will be a cumbersome process.

As per the information we have at the moment, when the Idea VoLTE service goes official in the above-mentioned cities, the supported device list will include the following brands: Apple, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Motorola, Vivo, Lenovo and Huawei. However, we’re not sure about the devices though. It’s a surprise to see Motorola on the list because the brand is yet to release an OTA update for its smartphones with support for Airtel VoLTE and Vodafone VoLTE. In the case of OnePlus, the upcoming OnePlus 6 will support Idea VoLTE service out of the box.