Verizon: Our Network's So Good We Don't Need Wi-Fi Calling Wednesday Sep 17 2014 17:58 EDT Both AT&T and Verizon have been downplaying T-Mobile's recent embrace of Wi-Fi calling, telling anybody in the press who'll listen that the carrier is only rushing toward Wi-Fi calling because it's traditional cellular network isn't up to snuff. Speaking at the recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon's in no rush to offer Wi-Fi calling, and like AT&T took not-so veiled shots at T-Mobile's network: quote:
(Shammo) said Verizon needs to do "some technological work in our network to make it available," and it should come around the middle of next year. However, he said Wi-Fi calling was "never a top priority" for Verizon. "We built our voice platform so extensively [that] there was never a need for us to tell our customers, 'Oh, our network is not good enough so you need to go on Wi-Fi to complete your call.'"
T-Mobile's CEO has denied the offer is about a lower-quality network, insisting that T-Mobile is offering the option just because it makes sense. It may prove useful to those rural or heavily-wooded-area users currently relying on separate femtocells because their cell signal is poor (something that's certainly not an exclusive issue for T-Mobile). |
