T-Mobile now offers voice calls over 5G in the US

T-Mobile has just announced and launched the capability to make and receive phone calls over 5G. Voice over 5G (VoNR or Voice Over New Radio) is now live in limited T-Mobile service areas of Portland, Oregon and Salt Lake City, Utah with plans to expand to more areas throughout the US this year. Customers with a Samsung Galaxy S21 on T-Mobile can already take advantage of VoNR. The S22 series will be supported through a future update.

Vendor partners for the service, which is supported by the operator's 5G standalone (SA) network, include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Qualcomm.

VoNR takes basic calling features and utilizes the 5G network. While this is just the start, this should theoretically allow voice services to improve in fidelity, offering lower latency when compared to traditional LTE networks. Of course, just how much of a difference it makes remains to be seen. An even bigger benefit is that it means if you're downloading something in the background, a call won't downgrade your connection and slow the download at the same time.

T-Mobile's VoNR service, which doesn't include any additional charges, claims to enable slightly faster call set-up times, meaning there's less delay between the time a user dials a number and when the phone starts ringing.

The service also brings T-Mobile one step closer to leveraging more of its 5G SA network which is a service-based architecture. T-Mobile launched its 5G SA network two years ago while fellow US operators Verizon and AT&T are still in the process of deploying theirs.

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