Voice over LTE study and test strategy definition

Voice and other circuit switched services in a LTE deployment can be based on a Circuit Switched Fall Back mechanism or on the upcoming Voice Over LTE option. Voice Over LTE option can be used with its SIP based signaling to route voice calls and other circuit switched services over the LTE's packet switched core. The main issue that is faced though is the validation of this approach before the deployment over commercial network. The test strategy devised as a result of this work will be able to visit corner scenarios and error sensitive services, so that signaling involved can be verified to ensure a robust deployment of the Voice Over LTE network. Signaling test strategy is based on the observations made during a simulated Voice Over LTE call inside the lab in a controlled environment. Emergency services offered are carefully studied to devise a robust test strategy to make sure that any service failure is avoided. Other area were the service is routed via different protocol stack layer than it normally is in a legacy circuit switched core are identified and brought into the scope of the test strategy.