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Steve Shaw
Associate Vice President of Marketing
Steve Shaw is associate vice president of Kineto Wireless, Since joining the company in 2004, Steve has presented at industry and UMA-specific conferences worldwide and has been a key spokesperson for the technology. Mr. Shaw is a UMA blogger and a regular contributor of articles to global wireless and fixed-mobile convergence publications.
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| Universal Mobile Access |
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What is UMA? |
UMA technologies are the 3GPP global standards for fixed-mobile convergence. UMA provides secure, scalable access to mobile voice, data and IMS services over broadband IP access networks. By deploying UMA technologies, mobile operators can deliver a number of compelling fixed-mobile convergence services. The most well-known application of UMA is dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets, which enable subscribers to automatically roam and handover between cellular networks and public and private WLANs. There is tremendous interest in femtocells as well. Leading operators around the world, including France Telecom/Orange, TeliaSonera, and Telecom Italia, have embraced UMA technology as the foundation for their fixed-mobile convergence strategy.
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| Why are mobile operators so interested in UMA? |
Mobile operators are interested in UMA because it gives them the means by which to accelerate their greatest growth opportunity (fixed-to-mobile substitution) while at the same time addressing one of their biggest threats (VoIP competition).
With mobile penetration levels high in most developed markets, mobile operators are now looking at fixed-to-mobile substitution (FMS) as their next big opportunity for revenue growth. Since UMA enables mobile operators to deliver high-quality, low-cost mobile services within subscriber's homes and offices, it makes an ideal solution to encourage subscribers to start using their mobile phone as their main phone, even when indoors.
Also, while mobile operators believed for a long time that displacement of fixed minutes to the mobile networks was inevitable, there are now a number of new operators leveraging broadband access and VoIP technology to target those same fixed minutes of use. Now these new VoIP players are now also looking to leverage Wi-Fi to start targeting mobile minutes of use and displacing them to the VoIP network. Since UMA enables mobile operators to leverage the same disruptive technologies as these new players (broadband, VoIP, Wi-Fi,.), it makes an ideal solution for them to create service offers that prevent subscribers from defecting to fixed VoIP services.
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| Who’s deploying UMA today? |
Universal Mobile Access services are deployed today by a range of operators globally. Integrated (fixed and mobile) operators, such as Orange/France Telecom, Cincinnati Bell, Rogers and TeliaSonera are deploying UMA to manage fixed-mobile substitution and address the threat from alternative VoIP providers.
Mobile-only operators T-Mobile US, as well as Orange in Spain, Poland and the UK, are deploying UMA-enabled dual mode handsets to accelerate FMS.
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| Initial UMA success is highly dependant on the availability and performance of handsets. So... who’s making them? How many and when? What about cost? |
As with the introduction of all new Radio Access Network (RAN) solutions, the success of UMA in dua-mode handsets is highly dependent the availability of Wi-Fi. As of mid 2007, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG have all launched their initial UMA handsets and all are expected to deliver additional UMA devices this year. In addition, there have been announcements from RIM, BenQ, Sagem, HP and HTC about UMA handsets currently in development and expected for commercial release this year. In total, the UMA market is expecting around 30 commercial handsets by the end of 2008.
The initial handsets are mainly mid-tier feature phones (1-2 mega pixel camera, video/MP3 players,.) with an average transfer price of about $200. However, a couple of the new models in development are targeting the upper range by leverage Windows Mobile 6. There are also lower tier entry-level handsets in the works. 2008 will see the first 3G/2G/Wi-Fi handsets as well, with demand demand building into 2009.
Over the last year, operators have been very explicit with the vendor community about their requirements for UMA-enabled dual mode handsets, which has resulted in a very strong product pipeline.
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Have more questions about UMA? Visit www.UMAToday.com. |
