On October 9, Chen Haiyong, President of the CS&IMS Domain of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line, delivered a keynote speech titled "Innovation Leads the Evolution Path to 5G-A Voice Network" at this year's Network X event which took place in Paris. In his presentation, Mr. Chen emphasized the importance of building a simplified, stable, and high-quality voice and video fundamental network, based on which operators can capitalize on the opportunities emerging in the 5G-Advanced (5G-A) and intelligent era. With this network, operators can transform traditional communications modes and create new service entry points, and in doing so revolutionize the way we interact with voice networks in the5G-A era.
For decades, single-modal communications — voice, video, or text — have been the norm, from the early days of CS services in 2G and 3G to the more advanced VoLTE in 4G and VoNR in 5G. But now, with the advent of New Calling, operators are entering a new voice communications age. By integrating ultra-high-definition, intelligent, and interactive capabilities into the calling services, New Calling provides an all-new multimodal communications experience. And by introducing AIGC, New Calling enables users to experience more intelligent and interactive calling services through real-time voice-to-text, voice-to-image, voice-to-avatar, and gesture-to-animation conversions. This marks a significant shift, expanding communications beyond human-to-human interactions to encompass human-to-digital human and digital human-to-digital human exchanges, ushering in the era of 5G-A multimodal communications.
Building a 5G-A-Oriented Voice and Video Fundamental Network
According to Mr. Chen, the path to success for New Calling involves a multi-step process spanning network construction, user acquisition, and service monetization. And at the heart of this process is the creation of a robust voice and video fundamental network. To support this, Huawei offers a complete suite of solutions to help operators build and deploy high-quality networks, setting the stage for business success in the 5G-A era. These solutions include Single Voice Core (SVC), Single Voice Insight (SVI), and Single Voice Roaming (SVR).
1.SVC: Building Simplified and Highly Stable Voice Networks
At the center of the SVC solution is a converged core network that streamlines service access and processing for a wide range of users, from 2G to 5G, as well as fixed-line subscribers. This innovative approach not only enables a seamless 2G and 3G network switch-off, but also paves the way for future-oriented network evolution, resulting in a simplified yet highly stable and reliable network architecture.
As the likelihood of network outages grows and traditional CS networks continue to sunset globally, operators must ensure their VoLTE networks have robust disaster recovery and backup capabilities. To address this critical challenge, Huawei SVC enables operators to maintain uninterrupted services even in the event of an IP bearer network failure. By deploying SVC in each regional DC, operators can ensure that calls are connected as normal, even if the communications with the IMS in the central DC are lost. This guarantees a seamless user experience.
2. SVI and SVR: Accelerating User Migration and Facilitating Roaming
In the ongoing evolution of mobile networks, CS-to-VoLTE user migration is emerging as a key strategy for operators. It offers two advantages: enhanced calling experiences for users and the reclamation of 2G and 3G spectrum resources for 4G and 5G development. With Huawei's SVI, a lightweight tool suite, operators can comprehensively assess and optimize network quality, guarantee a consistently high mean opinion score (MOS) of 4.0 across their entire network, and ultimately drive up VoLTE user adoption.
In addition, to make it easier for VoLTE users to roam, Huawei introduces the SVR solution, which is built upon the SVC solution and complements the standard S8HR solution. The SVR-enabled network interworks with a CS network through the CS roaming interface, allowing operators to maintain their existing roaming charging scheme. This means that when VoLTE users roam to another network, they can still enjoy an uninterrupted service experience, without the need to engage with multiple operators or undergo complex charging processes.
Intelligence + New Calling: Redefining Service Entry Points and Calling Value
The rise of AI technologies has sparked fierce competition among terminal providers, OTT players, and operators to establish themselves as the primary entry points for intelligent services. Some forward-thinking operators are taking a more strategic approach, leveraging terminal-network-cloud synergy to reshape the industry value chain. As noted by Mr. Chen, operators have a unique advantage in calling services due to their large user bases and ability to deliver real-time calling services on any device without the need to install additional apps. By harnessing this advantage, operators can transform users' dialing pads into an intelligent service entry point, redefine user experiences, and secure a dominant position in the calling service market.
Through strategic partnerships with leading operators, Huawei has successfully integrated intelligence into video calling to drive the commercialization of innovative services such as Fun Calling, AIGC-based Visualized Voice Calling, and Real-Time Translation. In China alone, there are already tens of millions of New Calling users. Meanwhile, operators in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are actively deploying or testing the technology, with plans to launch commercial services by the end of this year. As Huawei continues to push the boundaries of intelligence in New Calling, the company is exploring new use cases, such as leveraging IMS Data Channel and natural language processing technologies to deliver digital human-based customer services for enterprise users. This will not only help enterprises reduce costs and improve efficiency, but also enable operators to expand their B2B market share. Ultimately, Huawei's goal is to create an intelligent calling agent and provide a personalized intelligent calling assistant for each user, capable of efficiently processing call-related requirements. As the application ecosystem continues to evolve, the intelligent agent will become better and better at identifying user intent as well as orchestrating and coordinating multiple applications. This will help build a unified entry point and ecosystem for calling-related services.
Looking ahead, Huawei will remain committed to collaborating with industry partners to shape the future of calling services. Our shared goal is to establish a simplified, highly stable, and high-quality voice and video fundamental network, harnessing the potential of mobile AI to drive innovation and create a brighter future for calling services.