FMC to 170M

Informa recently published a report stating that there will be 170m FMC subscribers by 2012 generating $33B in revenues. Things are definitely looking up.

Interestingly, the report went on to caution that without increased cooperation between all players in the value chain, the industry faces an uphill struggle. This comment must be related to the later comment about VCC potentially completing the standardization process in 2007. Once (if?) completed, VCC will undoubtedly be a interoperability and standardization nightmare.

For UMA, interoperability has already been established, with all the existing UMA devices (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung) being interoperable with all the UMA controllers (Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola). Additionally, now that testing companies are in the game (Aeroflex, Anritsu, Rohde & Schwarz, Setcom) new handset makers getting into the game (BenQ, Sagem, HP, RIM) have a lot of options for ensuring interoperability.

One final note, I’m not sure why this comment was made:

...solutions have been suggested such as UMA...do not provide the type of rich IP-oriented services envisaged by FMC.

Huh? UMA doesn’t provide services, it’s a transport protocol. That’s like saying “...UMTS doesn’t provide rich IP-oriented services”.

But UMA delivers all the “rich IP oriented services” an operator can deploy. UMA supports any and all packet services today. And UMA doesn't discriminate, rich or poor, UMA delivers seamless mobility for all packet services.