No matter how unique your smartphone is, it’s still a phone, first and foremost. And even if you’ve replaced traditional phone calls with audio messages orvideo calls, being able to call friends and families, businesses, and more is essential. Still, as cell networks have evolved to meet modern data speeds, voice calls haven’t been left behind. And with5G NR now widespread throughout the United States, you can be sure carriers are working to adapt to the latest technology.
But nothing is as easy as it seems, and we’re still in the very early days of anyone conducting high-quality voice calls over 5G connectivity. If you’re curious about what makes Vo5G different from other phone calls and whether your carrier supports them yet, read on to find out.
What is Voice over 5G (AKA Vo5G / VoNR)?
Voice over 5G — also called Voice over New Radio (VoNR) — is the latest advancement in voice calls for your smartphone. As a communication standard, it does exactly what’s on the tin, allowing you to place phone calls to your friends and family over 5G rather than relying on the standard LTE network. It’s the next step in voice technology, which remains an essential part of networks despite theprevalence of messaging apps in 2023.
Although it’s early days for Voice over NR, as cell networks look forward to the eventual retirement of 4G LTE networks, the ability to place phone calls over 5G standalone (or 5G SA) remains a priority. That way, when LTE goes offline, the work has been done to make sure phone calls aren’t interrupted. Consider how long it took VoLTE to roll out following the arrival of 4G data networks. Still, VoLTE was ready to go once the national U.S. carriersfinally disabled their 3G networks.
It’s not as easy as your carrier flipping a switch. A lot of prep work has to go into getting VoNR to work properly, which is likely why you haven’t seen it on your smartphone.
Why is Voice over 5G called VoNR?
We use the term Vo5G throughout this article to keep things clear, but VoNR is the technical term you’ll often see thrown around the industry. NR, or New Radio, never caught on like 4 G’s LTE branding did, but it’s effectively the same thing. Simply put, 4G is to 5G, as LTE is to NR.
How is it different from VoLTE?
Aside from relying on 5G networks, Voice over LTE and VoNR are similar. Smartphones and other supported devices can use 5G networks if Vo5G is active to place phone calls, with the promise of improved sound quality compared to older technology. Thanks to improvements to the IMS (or IP Multimedia Subsystem), when paired with a 5G core, your calls will feature better voice quality and lower latency than ever before.
Even the way carriers worked toward rolling out this new standard is similar to how VoLTE appeared on the scene. Well into the era of Android, most voice calls were placed over 3G. MetroPCS was the first carrier to launch VoLTE services in August 2012, though it required a specific LG smartphone to be compatible. We’re in the same early period for Vo5G, giving this endeavor a big dose of déjà vu.
What carriers support Vo5G?
In the summer of 2022,T-Mobile became the first mobile network in the U.S. to deploy VoNR, albeit with some strict limitations in place on their 5G deployment. In June of last year, when the company flipped the switch on its new voice services, it did so in two markets: Salt Lake City and Portland. As of August 2023, T-Mobile’s VoNR all service is available in Cincinnati, Ohio; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York, New York; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Seattle, Washington.
Although T-Mobile’s Voice over 5G has yet to hit most of the carrier’s coverage areas, it’s updating its infrastructure to cover more than 100 million people by the end of 2023.
Verizon, on the other hand, has not announced when it will launch VoNR service, but we wouldn’t expect it soon. The carrier told FireceWireless that ithasn’t set a timeline for Vo5G service, but it will likely lag T-Mobile and AT&T in the short term. Verizon’s VoNR service uses its new 5G standalone core, thousands of vRAN cell sites, and network software called Verizon Cloud Platform — which allows the carrier use automated network configuration changes, capacity optimization, and a score of other features in real time to improve call and data delivery. Verizon wants to deploy 20,000 vRAN sites by 2025. The carrier is working with Samsung for the deployment and, as of December 2022,it deployed more than 10,000 commercial sites.
What about smaller service providers? Dish Network, the fourth national carrier spun up in the aftermath of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint, has also been working on rolling out Vo5G. As a 5G standalone service, Dish doesn’t have an underlying LTE network to fall back on for voice calls, so it (along with its Boost MVNO) relies on T-Mobile and AT&T’s 4G network for phone calls from most of its customer base.
For its part, Dish has said that it’slaunching 5G standalone in more marketson a weekly basis through its Boost Infinite network, though it’s well behind its initial nationwide schedule.
Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T have downplayed the need to expand voice calls to 5G. In 2021, both companies issued statements toFierceWirelessas T-Mobile continued to ramp up work on its service. Verizon, for its part, said it didn’t see a reason to swap to 5G NR for voice calls, even as it continues to push its 5G technology hard in marketing. AT&T said it would implement Voice over 5G when the technology catches up to its branded VoLTE implementation, HD Voice. In other words, AT&T will do it when it needs its LTE spectrum back, and not a second sooner.
The good news is that once the IMS core for VoLTE is in place — which it is on all three major networks — upgrading to VoNR is easier to accomplish. That’saccording to Nokia, one of the leading companies behind IMS technology and 5G cores in the cellular world.
What phones support Vo5G?
There’s not a ton of details about phones that support Vo5G in the US, but the Global Mobile Suppliers Association announced dozens of mobile platforms and discrete modems support VoNR. As carriers deploy the feature to more areas, we’d expect smartphone makers to release firmware updates to add the feature. At the moment, however here’s a list of devices that we know have Vo5G:
We’ll continue to update this list as we learn more.
The future of voice is coming … eventually
As you can tell, 5G VoNR has a long road before it becomes commonplace. But VoLTE before it went through a similar process. While it’s not always smooth sailing, all three carriers will eventually switch to allowing anyone on any support phone to place a call over their dedicated 5G networks. It might just take 4G networks eventually dying to spur most of the U.S. carriers to start working on what’s next for voice.
