It may seem like Unlicensed Mobile Access has only recently burst onto the wireless scene, but the Third Generation Partnership Project standard that enables handovers between GSM-based cellular networks and Wi-Fi hot spots has been in development since the turn of the century.
For carriers, UMA provides a way to expand cellular coverage for voice and data services in homes and businesses without having to pay for expensive indoor coverage. Consumers are provided with far better indoor coverage, and because the handovers between licensed and unlicensed networks are seamless, there should be fewer dropped calls.
An early leader in UMA technology, Nokia Corp. explains that a consumer who has no cellular network coverage at home can set up a wireless local area network for making calls with a UMA-enabled phone. If the user travels outside the rage of the WLAN, the handset automatically switches to the cellular network, and the call, whether it be a voice or a data call, continues without any interruption. The handoff works the other way around too, so users can continue with a call as they enter their home or any indoor area with Wi-Fi coverage.
UMA equipment isn’t hard to find these days.
Last August, Nokia announced that it was incorporating Kineto Wireless’ UMA Network Controller into its networks and said trials were under way with major operators. At the time, Kineto’s president and chief executive officer said the company was “seeing tremendous demand for UMA products and services from operators.”
Steve Shaw, director of marketing at Kineto, said he believes that base-station controllers for UMA technology soon will become standard fare in GSM and GPRS networks as carriers look for cost-effective ways to keep up with the demands Mobile TV and other data applications are expected to put on their infrastructure.
“Our UMA technology has a low impact on operator’s networks,” Shaw said.
The UMA base-station controller and handset software maker also supplies its technology to Motorola Inc.
Until very recently, UMA-enabled handsets were hard to find. But during the 3GSM Conference in Barcelona, Nokia introduced its dual-mode UMA handsets, clearing the way for UMA deployments.
With its large GSM and GPRS following and vendors like Alcatel Alsthom and L.M. Ericsson getting serious about UMA technology, European carriers seem poised to roll out UMA services this year.
A recent analyst report from Cazenove Inc. states, “After many months of hype with little obvious delivery, we now believe that convergence technologies such as UMA are about to make a material impact on mobile operators, and consequently the infrastructure market. We believe the technologies will exacerbate pricing pressure in mobile voice, with tangible effects towards the end of 2006.”
The report further explained that UMA is comparatively cheap and easy for operators to deploy in their networks and its technical issues are rapidly being overcome. The report identified several operators that are launching UMA services:
- France Telecom/Orange is using its combined fixed and mobile network to launch UMA services this year with handsets from Nokia.
- TeliaSonera began its Denmark UMA pilot in December and is also trialing services in Sweden with Ericsson.
- BT Group plc launched its Fusion service in 2005, attracting some 14,000 customers.
- T-Mobile USA Inc. is leading the UMA parade in the U.S., probably in response to the carrier’s lack of cellular spectrum and challenges in providing indoor cellular coverage.
However, some in the industry say UMA technology isn’t quite ready for large-scale deployments and therefore, uptake will be slow.
“Although UMA could be beneficial in off-loading cellular traffic over the unlicensed wireless network in a seamless way, thus potentially lowering the cost to the user, there are a number of roadblocks for wide deployment in the near future,” noted Miles Lee, vice president at telecom consultancy firm Adventis Corp. “Some of these roadblocks include wide availability of competitively priced/featured dual-mode handsets, higher power consumption requirements of UMA-enabled, dual-mode handsets, complexity of deploying and managing quality UMA-enabled service as well as difficulty in dealing with customer service and technical support issues. I suspect from a pure wireless carrier perspective, UMA would not be a high priority. UMA could be more valuable to [mobile virtual network operators] that want to off-load traffic from the network operator as well as integrated cellular and cable or fixed-line service providers.”
“UMA could be more compelling in Western Europe where cellular voice and data service costs are higher,” Lee added. “Given that U.S. operators already offer competitive bundled pricing plans and unlimited data service plans, U.S. cellular customers would not benefit as much from off-loading their data and voice traffic onto the unlicensed networks. It is highly unlikely that we will see any significant usage of UMA in the U.S. market over the next several years-I suspect penetration of UMA handsets will be very low within the next several years.”
Still, Nokia remains steadfast that its support of UMA will pay off.
“Thirty-two percent of calls originate in the home, and there are a large percentage of households or suburban areas that don’t have indoor cellular coverage, and UMA solves this problem,” said Eric Estroff, director of marketing at Nokia Networks. “UMA is here today… it’s really up to each operator and their business case for UMA.”
