Linksys joins in UMA-enabled ATA market

As reported on-line by Engadget through FCC filing, Linksys has developed an analog terminal adaptor (ATA) based on UMA technology for T-Mobile US.

UMA is fundamentally about FMS and enabling the mobile operator to deliver services over the public internet. With this new Linksys product, T-Mobile is now able to offer a fixed line VoIP service in the home similar to what Vonage and others deliver.

Why would T-Mobile do this when they have a perfectly good dual-mode handset service already available? It’s one more tool to accelerate FMS. In our household, my wife doesn’t particularly like walking around with her mobile phone stuck to her ear. It puts a kink in her neck.

However, our larger Panasonic cordless/DECT phone, connected to the incumbent fixed line provider, is more ergonomically pleasing. The idea is that we would port our fixed line number to T-Mobile who would provide us the ATA, and our fixed services would come from T-Mobile over our existing broadband network. Now T-Mobile can capture our entire in home voice usage, from both mobiles as well as the fixed line, through this terminal adaptor.

This let's mobile operators offer a Vonage-like service.

Note that this joins the already available Motorola RSG-3500 available from the Connected Homes Group.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: UMA is really a ‘universal’ access technology for delivering any and all mobile services over IP; dual-mode phones, femtocells, terminal adaptors,... UMA let’s mobile operators harness the cost and performance advantages of IP to accelerate FMS.