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elecommunications company PT Smartfren Telecom aims to inch further into digital innovation by introducing Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) technology in two of its newest smartphones, as a way to fully utilize its 4G network.

In a move that the company described as a '€œfirst in Indonesia'€, Smartfren'€™s two new Andromax smartphones, the R2 and the E2, will feature the technology. VoLTE is a system that enables better quality video calling for users as it carries voice calls on the 4G network instead of the cellular network.

Smartfren president director Merza Fachys said VoLTE was one of the most innovative methods of communication in the digital era as it was able to enrich the quality of video conference calls, thus increasing efficiency.

'€œVoLTE enables us to strengthen our position as Indonesia'€™s prime cellular service provider. It introduces a kind of technology which will prove to be crucial in the future,'€ Merza told reporters on Friday.

The VoLTE feature will initially only be available on the two new Andromax smartphones. However, Smartfren said there were plans to make the VoLTE feature commercially available in the near future.

Merza added that the new phones would be Smartfren'€™s newest entries into the entry-level smartphone market, supporting a plan from Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara for more affordable smartphones below Rp 1 million in order to further increase usage of the country'€™s relatively new 4G broadband network.

'€œThe Andromax E2 and R2 show our commitment toward enriching the entry-level smartphone market in Indonesia. Aside from that, we hope that by introducing the new VoLTE feature in these phones it will accelerate the 4G/LTE network'€™s penetration throughout all areas in Indonesia in order to enrich its digital ecosystem,'€ he said.

Merza said Smartfren planned to expand its 4G network to about 160 cities by the end of 2016, with 85 cities carrying Smartfren'€™s network as of the end of 2015. The company has more than 1.2 million users on its 4G network at present, from a total user base of 13 million nationwide.

Smartfren said earlier that 70 percent of its user base was still using feature phones, and that only 2 million users were using smartphones.

Meanwhile, Smartfren'€™s networks vice president Munir Syahda Prabowo added that while Smartfren and other companies continued to race for the most innovative methods to deliver their 4G networks, the main problem remained educating and spreading information to the public on how the network worked.

'€œWhat is still needed now is to educate the public on the benefits of the 4G network so that they can be gradually encouraged to switch from their old CDMA networks to 4G. We are teaming up with digital communities in several cities to help us educate the public,'€
Munir said.

According to data from a 2015 report by Juniper Research, the number of VoLTE connections worldwide could reach 2 billion by 2020, with 123 million recorded in 2015.

'€” JP/Dylan Amirio