While a little late to the game, Sprint is finally joining its competitors in offering voice-over-LTE service, or VoLTE —  but the rollout has a long way to go yet. So far, the soft launch targets 15 US markets and just three devices: the Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and S8 Active. The carrier will expand to more markets over the coming weeks.

Sprint's VoLTE replaces Calling Plus, the VOIP app stopgap measure that Sprint provided for LTE calling. An update rolling out now with the October security patch decommissions Calling Plus, replacing it with VoLTE in the markets where it's available so far. In areas without VoLTE, simultaneous voice and data use (the largest benefit of VoLTE, in addition to better call quality) will only be available when connected to Wi-Fi.

The full list of soft launch markets is below.

  • Atlanta-Athens
  • Chicago
  • Dallas-Ft. Worth
  • Houston
  • Indianapolis
  • Kansas
  • Missouri
  • New York City
  • Oregon-West Washington
  • Philadelphia
  • Pittsburgh
  • San Francisco Bay
  • South Bay
  • Southern Jersey
  • Washington DC

If you're among the lucky demographic that has access to Sprint's new feature, you can switch it on by navigating to settings > Connections > Voice networks and toggling on VoLTE. Android Police has reached out to Sprint for details on when additional devices will gain VoLTE support.

Source: S4GRU, Reddit

Image credit: Mike Mozart via Flickr