Vodafone to place Voice over LTE in customers' Christmas stockings

Vodafone postpaid customers packing a Samsung smartphone will be the first to experience the telco's VoLTE technology when its rollout commences just in time for Christmas.

December will see owners of the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Note 5 receive Vodafone's new offering, which enables users to make calls using Vodafone's 4G network, resulting in shorter call set up times and longer battery life on some devices.

VoLTE keeps users on 4G during voice calls, rather than reverting back to 3G as they've done in the past. But using 4G like this won't get in the way of other 4G activities, so customers can keep browsing the web or using social media while making or receiving a call.

Re-VoLTE

The technology will see Vodafone maximise the spectral efficiency of its network, enabling 2.3 times the users per MHz.

VoLTE will become available on a growing range of smartphones throughout 2016, until it is made available for all postpaid and prepaid customers.

Vodafone isn't the first telco to the VoLTE party, as Telstra started to roll out its own version of the functionality, called 4G Calling, in September.

• Keen to try the new tech? Maybe you'll be tempted by Vodafone's new 15GB plan.