More Smart Wi-Fi for Orange UK Subscribers

We've been hearing about some subscriber demand for more UMA/GAN-enabled devices from Orange UK. And, as reported in MobileBurn.com, Orange has delivered the HTC Desire S Android with Orange's Signal Boost service.

Can you hear the applause?

This is the second Android phone available from Orange with its Signal Boost (UMA) service. It's now listed on the Orange site. The other is the LG Optimus One, another strong Android smartphone. Plus, Orange also added the Nokia E5, which is optimal for business and personal use. Signal Boost is based on Smart Wi-Fi.

Mobile Burn's reviewer is a fan of the Desire. You can read his full review and watch the video tour at http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=13905.

Three, Two, One, Launch!

At CTIA yesterday, T-Mobile announced three new phones with Wi-Fi Calling.

First up, the lightening fast G2x from LG (aka Optimus 2x).  This new device sports the Tegra dual-core processor from NVIDIA.  As the review said, “applications literally felt like they were opening and closing instantly.”  Throw in Wi-Fi Calling, and this phone is sure to be a winner.

Next up is the “Astound”, or Nokia C7.  Of course Nokia’s position in the US market is slim.  But after using the phone on the Nokia stand at CTIA, I have to say it isn’t half bad.  It’s not a ‘web’ phone like Android or iPhone, but as Sasha Segan suggests, it could be “T-Mobile’s best feature phone”.  Best feature:  Wi-Fi Calling!

Finally is the new Sidekick 4G from Samsung.  In July 2010, T-Mobile asked loyal Sidekick customers to “stay tuned for exciting updates in the months ahead.”  I guess they meant 9 months ahead, because the Sidekick franchise has been reborn with this cool new devices – which includes Wi-Fi Calling.

It's clear that T-Mobile is continuing to aggressively pursue their Wi-Fi Calling advantage in the Market.  More than half of all phones available on T-Mobile's website today are Wi-Fi Calling enabled.  It looks like this is a winner.

Nokia C7 To Come with Wi-Fi Calling?

Nokia keeps delivering Wi-Fi Calling phones for T-Mobile.  Here's another example, offered up by PocketNow.com.

Well done Nokia.  The C7 joins a long line of Wi-Fi Calling enabled phones at T-Mobile, the E73, the 6301, the 6086.  And there are probably more.

Android gobbling up market share

Here's an abosolutely staggering chart based on data from Gartner Research released in November 2010.

The chart shows the year over year growth of the smartphone market, which nearly doubled (96%).  By itself, that is truly impressive.  But more astounding is the growth of Android market share, coming from 3% to 25% in just one year.

In a market that is doubling every year, Android was able to grow significantly faster than all other platforms.

Apple basically held it's own, growing at the same rate as the market (roughly double).  Of course the real tragities are the sub-market growth of RIM and MSFT.

With Android devices now covering the high-end, mid-tier and entry-level market segments, it's growth potential looks unstoppable.

Nokia's VoIP Aspirations

Nokia’s lack of support for UMA in handsets, exacerbated by the latest research that they are 50% of the market for dual-mode Wi-Fi phones , has long been a frustration for the UMA community.

On the other hand, Nokia actively pushes their SIP client in devices, with a table listing devices and discussion framework.

The difference is that UMA/GAN is a technology which route VoIP calls to (and through) the mobile operator.

Whereas SIP is used by everyone but the mobile operator, primarily third party VoIP companies like Fring and Truphone.

Clearly Nokia believes in Mobile VoIP, but just not mobile VoIP for their primary customer base, the mobile operators.

All this got me thinking, why would Nokia work so hard to put SIP into their handsets when SIP isn’t used by any mobile operator today?

Skype on N97: No Thanks.

When I first saw the announcement that Nokia was going to bundle Skype into the N97, I was a bit surprised.

If you recall, it was barely 6 months ago Nokia said they were pulling the VoIP hooks out of the S60 OS.

And now they are going to actually put a full Skype client bundled into the device? Wow.

I think mobile operators have barely tolerated the fact that users may be able to download a VoIP client onto an open platform phone. But when a major vendor comes out and says they are going to wrap a competing voice service...I think the FierceVoIP headline says it best: “Skype on Nokia N97 invokes wrath of carriers.”

What is going on in Finland? These seem like the moves of a desperate company that can’t decide on a strategy. Typically, Nokia charts a course and executes it. But when it comes to VoIP, it seems like they can’t decide in what direction to go.

I know I’m a bit biased, but this seems easy to me:

Nokia, your bread gets its butter from mobile service providers. In turn, the primary revenue for mobile service providers is voice and SMS. Bundling a service onto your product that directly competes with your customers' primary revenue generating service (or even providing the hooks for it) seems like a bad idea.

If only there was a VoIP service that was designed BY mobile operators FOR mobile operators. Hummm… what was the name of it again???? It’s starts with a U…

Rather than fighting against the wishes of the mobile operators, why don’t you give them what they want? Put UMA on all those cool N and E phones that already have Wi-Fi.

SIDE NOTE:

In a discussion I had at MWC on this very topic, an analyst told me they thought Nokia’s long-term secret plan is to use its service portal Ovi as a VoIP hub, basically competing directly with its customers.

UMA @ MWC

First, I’d like to apologize for my utter lack of blogging over the past couple of weeks (months…?). It has been a bit hectic getting ready for Mobile World Congress, as well as for some other cool things we have in the works (yes... that's a teaser).

At MWC, UMA was certainly not as hot a topic as femtocells, but it continues to be a successful service offer for the providers offering it. There are so many companies with UMA products that the community's become a 'who's who' of the mobile industry.

Orange was a major supporter of UMA and its own Unik service at MWC. Executive Vice President Yves Tyrode spoke during the "Mobile and the Converging World" session on Tuesday and reinforced important messages about Unik:

• Unik generates higher household ARPUs
• Unik subscribers churn less than average

But he also took the time to talk about why UMA is key for the company's mobile TV service. The service was launched with two new 3G UMA phones, the Sony Ericsson G705u and LG Secret KF-757.

• UMA provides a seamless experience, switching the streaming TV signal from 3G to Wi-Fi.
• UMA and Wi-Fi complement the 3G macro network with high bandwidth and a strong signal indoors.
• UMA, with it’s SIM-based authentication, satisfies DRM requirements for delivery over Wi-Fi.
• There are an increasing number of high-end multimedia phones with UMA.

In addition to the presentation, Orange hosted the 2^nd Annual UMA Innovation Awards with an elegant affair on their stand. The awards recognized innovation and excellence in UMA-enabled handsets.

A highlight of the awards program was the Innovator's Award, presented to the company which has demonstrated unique innovation in UMA over the past year. This year’s winner was T-Mobile US for its highly successful fixed-line VoIP service based on UMA.

In wandering the Orange stand, the handsets on display were primarily Unik/UMA devices, again reinforcing the company's commitment to UMA.

One announcement the UMA community was hoping for was an unveiling of the HTC Jade, a phone rumored to have UMA support. Unfortunately, no such announcement was forthcoming. But CTIA is just around the corner…

Of course the Kineto stand had its regular display of all UMA-enabled products. With 24 handsets, three terminal adaptors and five handset platforms on display, it’s clear UMA devices are abundant.

There were plenty of rumors about Telia’s re-launch of their UMA service, as well as Orange’s push into the UK, Spain and Poland. There were even rumors about new UMA-enabled devices from Nokia, perhaps even N series phones.

In retrospect, 2008 was an excellent year for UMA. And all indications show that 2009 will, once again, exceed expectations.

Two new UMA phones

This week saw the introduction of two new UMA enabled devices.

Today Nokia released the new 7510 device at CES. A quad-band phone with a solid 2 mp camera and SMTP/POP3 mail, this is more than an ‘entry level’ device. Targeted for T-Mobile US, it looks like it could become popular worldwide.

This week Orange started selling “Chicago” a private label device rumored to be developed by Taiwan OEM powerhouse Foxconn. The device is fairly basic, filling in the entry level segment of Orange’s Unik service offer.

Not a bad week for UMA handsets.

Nokia Drops VoIP Support from new N Series?

As reported at GigaOm this weekend, apparently Nokia has dropped support for its VoIP applications on some new N series products going forward.

What appears to have happened is that some, but not all, of Nokia’s embedded SIP/VoIP stack has been removed. Some view this as an opportunity for more third party VoIP developers to jump in and innovate. Others view this as Nokia capitulating to the demands of mobile operators who see third-party VoIP apps cannibalizing high-margin international voice traffic.

Regardless, it re-opens the discussion about Nokia supporting a UMA client in the N and potentially E series devices. Nokia is the largest supplier of Wi-Fi-enabled devices today, and the lack of support for UMA in their N series products continues to be puzzling.

Capabilities such as ‘internet offload’, a dynamic routing capability in the handset which sends (for example) GSM voice traffic through the UMA tunnel but routes third party SIP/VoIP traffic directly to the internet, make it even easier for Nokia to support UMA and SIP/VoIP concurrently.

The Connected Home Heats Up

Just in time for summer, there is a lot of activity in making the handset part of the Connected Home.

For those who don’t know, there is a vision of a connected home where devices develop an ad-hoc network and can communicate. Standardizing this has been the domain of UPnP and more recently DLNA.

While there are a growing number of devices (TVs, DVRs, Printers, …) which support Connected Home, the mobile phone has been consistently out of the picture. Now two different approaches are helping to pull the phone into the connection.

First is Nokia with the N95, using Wi-Fi as the transport to communication with other devices in the home.

But clearly there is only a small number of Wi-Fi enabled handsets, and so femtocell vendor ip.Access has put together his clever demonstration on how a 3G phone could be proxied into the connected home through a femtocell.

While there are some questions about how this works, it's a powerful vision of bringing mobile phones into the connected home.

Internet Offload and UMA

“Internet Offload” is the ability for a dual-mode phone to connect directly to the internet through the Wi-Fi radio. The phone which comes to most people’s mind is the iPhone, but Wi-Fi enabled HTC and Nokia E/N series support this feature too.

When the iPhone enters a Wi-Fi environment, the GSM radio stays on (for circuit voice and mobile packet data services), and the Wi-Fi radio can be used for accessing internet services like Google Maps directly.

For some reason, the market seems to think that a dual-mode phone can support either UMA or Internet Offload, but not both simultaneously.

This is not true!

Internet Offload and UMA are fully compatible functions of a dual-mode phone.

In fact the strongest example is the family of UMA-enabled Blackberries (8820, Curve/8320, Pearl/8120) which all support UMA and Internet Offload concurrently.

Here’s how it works:

When a UMA-enabled Blackberry enters Wi-Fi, the UMA tunnel is established. The UMA tunnel is used to transport services which reside in the mobile core network to the phone. The easiest example is voice services. But any data application which is delivered from the mobile core is accessed through the UMA tunnel, applications like MMS or any stream media services offered from the network (MobiTV,…)

A key advantage of using the UMA tunnel for service delivery is mobility. Any application or service which takes advantage of the UMA tunnel maintains session continuity between the Wi-Fi network and the outdoor macro network.

But it’s the way UMA-enabled Blackberries also support Internet Offload which is most interesting. When the phone tries to access web based services like Google Maps, the traffic is routed directly to the Wi-Fi access layer and out to the internet. No going through the UMA tunnel, no burdening the mobile core with non-revenue generating internet traffic. Note this is also how the Blackberry accesses mail services when in Wi-Fi, directly over the internet.

The trick is that the Blackberry maintains a basic router function in the handset. For application which are ‘hosted’ (circuit voice, SMS, MMS,…), the traffic is routed through the UMA tunnel and to the mobile core. For browser based applications, the traffic is routed directly to the internet.

Note there is no 'seamless mobility' for services routed via Internet Offload directly over Wi-Fi. When the phone moves outside of Wi-Fi coverage, the session ends. The session can be restarted over the macro RAN, but there will be a drop in service.

Why is Internet Offload + UMA important?

First, it’s important to clear up the misunderstanding in the industry. Early UMA phones didn’t support the Internet Offload feature because operators specified they wanted UMA-enabled dual-mode phones to work ‘exactly the same’ in Wi-Fi as in GSM. Therefore, all the packet traffic was to be routed via the UMA tunnel to the mobile core when on Wi-Fi, because all packet traffic is routed to the mobile core when on GSM. [It’s in this way that UMA is really a RAN technology, making Wi-Fi an access radio for mobile services.]

With dual-mode phones supporting Internet Offload on the market, operators are again saying they want UMA-enabled phones to operate ‘exactly the same’. But now this means adding support for Internet Offload concurrently with UMA by routing some traffic over the UMA tunnel and other traffic directly to the internet.

Second, support of Internet Offload is a critical component of making the mobile phone an integral member of the ‘connected home.’ There is a movement underway to bring household electronics together into a cohesive fabric. But a mobile phone without Internet Offload capabilities* will be excluded from supporting local connections in the home. Thus the phone will continue to be outside the ‘connected home’ vision.

By highlighting UMA and Internet Offload support concurrently in the same device, UMA devices can now easily fit into the vision of the ‘connected home’.

Now Nokia N series handsets can support UMA along with the existing Internet Offload capabilities. In fact, the Nokia N95 was one of the first handsets to demonstrate support for DLNA, a ‘connected home’ protocol standard.

[* - There are two ways to make the handset a member of the 'connected home'. First is to have a dual-mode Wi-Fi enabled handset with Internet Offload capabilities. The second, pioneered by the Femto Forum, is to proxy a standard 3G handset into the connected home network via a femtocell.]

Fido fetches a DMH service with UMA

Information has been leaked about Fido, a mobile brand in for Rogers in Canada, regarding an upcoming dual-mode handset service based on UMA.

According to the post, the service, called UNO, will have two pricing options and feature the sleek Nokia 6301 and the brand new Motorola Z6w. The rumor is of a soft-launch on April 2.

As show, the Nokia 6301 retails for 50 CAD with three year commitment.

For those of you who continue to think "UMA phones are expensive", the 6300, the non-UMA version, is the same price. Eventually the market will realize there's really no premium to Wi-Fi in handsets.

Ono!?! Definitely Oh Yes!

Spanish quad-play operator Ono is the latest to launch a dual-mode handset service based on UMA technology. Ono’s service, called “io”, offers consumers the same rate on calls to fixed and mobile lines 24 hours a day.

From Wi-Fi, it is a rate of 0.0€/minute on calls to other Ono mobile or fixed lines, and just 0.11€/minute on calls to other Spanish operators.

Outside the home, it is still 0.0€/minute on calls to other Ono mobile or fixed lines, and a flat rate of 0.15€/minute on calls to fixed and mobile lines in Spain.

Currently Ono offers Samsung and Nokia products, with more phones in the works.

Ono is a quad-play competitive provider in Spain, offering mobile, fixed, broadband and television services.

Wi-Fi: A 'feature' or a 'technology'?

A research company sent me the outline of a report on the global mobile device market. In it, they promoted the fact that they had a comprehensive list of market statistics that could be divided up by region, handset tier, by technology and by feature.

The ‘technologies’ listed included the usual RAN suspects: GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA ..., HSxPA, WiMAX, LTE,...

The ‘features’ listed the same usual suspects: email, IM, camera, video, MP3, GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

This got me thinking: Is Wi-Fi a ‘feature’ or a ‘technology’?

For any non-UMA-enabled dual-mode phone, the answer is clear that Wi-Fi is a feature. The iPhone, any Nokia E series, or Wi-Fi enabled HTC devices all list Wi-Fi as a feature. This is because Wi-Fi is not essential to the operation of the device. These are essentially GSM mobile phones, and the addition of (or lack of) Wi-Fi does not impact the core capability of the device (the ability to make a phone call).

Sure, the iPhone has gotten close to ‘seamless integration’ of Wi-Fi as a *feature* on a device, but I’m sure there’s a large percentage of people who never use the Wi-Fi ‘feature’ or who only use it infrequently.

I contrast this with a UMA-enabled dual-mode Wi-Fi device. In this case, Wi-Fi is used every day. Any time the subscriber is at home or even in the office, the phone is connected to Wi-Fi. Not that the subscriber has to know or care, but Wi-Fi is actually rather essential to the operation of the device. When attached to Wi-Fi, voice services, SMS, MMS, all mobile services are delivered over the Wi-Fi radio.

Certainly for people who acquired a UMA-enabled device to ensure coverage in the home, this is a fundamental requirement and therefore is not just a ‘feature’, but more of a core ‘technology’ of the handset.

I think it’s fair to compare the operation of a UMA-enabled dual-mode phone with the operation of an equally ‘dual-mode’ phone: 3G. I say ‘dual-mode’ because all 3G phones come with 2G RAN technology as well. A subscriber using a 3G phone doesn’t spend too much timing thinking about whether the phone is connected to the 2G or 3G network. The phone just works. The subscriber doesn’t expect there to be any service interruption or disruption that comes from a 3G/2G device. Frankly, this is exactly how Wi-Fi/UMA works in a ‘dual-mode’ phone as well.

I know that T-Mobile with their HotSpot @Home service does not consider Wi-Fi to be a ‘feature’. For T-Mobile, Wi-Fi (with UMA) is a core RAN technology. It is literally a second RAN technology. T-Mobile has a nationwide 2.5G network, and by rolling out HotSpot @Home, they now have a second RAN technology.

Perhaps the definition is that Wi-Fi by itself is a ‘feature’, but UMA-enabled Wi-Fi is a RAN ‘technology’.

I think this gets down to a core issue that the market isn’t seeing. The operators who are doing UMA/Wi-FI aren’t doing it because it’s an interesting feature, they are doing it as a second (or third in the case of Orange) RAN technology.

We have always said “UMA is a parallel access network,” but it’s clear this message isn’t getting through.

Wi-Fi phones don't have to be expensive

This week brought the announcement of the latest product from Nokia, the 6301, UMA-enabled dual-mode device. This is an update to the extremely popular 6300.

In the press release from Nokia, the 6301 has a suggested price of €230 before rebates/subsidies. Given the current exchange rate, a price of €230 gave me pause... ‘Uh oh, another expensive UMA device...”

That got me thinking, what is the premium to the 6301 (clearly it must be more expensive because it has Wi-Fi!) compared with the ‘classic’ 6300?

The internet is a wonderful place, and after a short search, I found an article which covered the launch of the 6300. Surprisingly enough, the suggested price of the 6300 at launch was €250. Hummm... Now I’m impressed.

Certainly time and volumes have helped to lower prices, but I must say I was quite surprised to find the original, non-Wi-Fi version was originally priced €20 higher than the new, UMA-enabled version.

Even more surprising was a quick check of the Orange.fr web site, which has the 6300 currently priced at €229 as part of a web special. Now I’m very impressed.

I’m not sure when the market will stop saying “Wi-Fi = expensive”. Of course, the iPhone doesn’t help, nor the fact that nearly every other Wi-Fi enabled device is at the high end of the spectrum. Perhaps we need a new campaign, if “Wi-Fi = expensive”, then “UMA = value”. UMA-enabled phones are not dramatically more expensive than any other device.

For those who click through on the article about the 6300, you’ll notice it was the same time Nokia introduced the 6086, it’s second UMA-enabled product. There is some irony.

EDGE/GPRS support on HotSpot@Home

There have been a couple reports about T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home service supporting data services through EDGE/GRPS only.

Those reports are WRONG!

What is being reported is that a “G” indicator on the display screen of the Nokia phone comes up when surfing/access packet services through UMA/Wi-Fi.

This actually means that the GRPS engine is being used, not that the GPRS/EGDE radio is being used. UMA is actually transporting the GRPS packet session over Wi-Fi.

This is actually the key advantage of UMA for packet services. If you start a data/packet session in UMA/Wi-Fi and then walk out the front door, that session will continue on the EDGE/GPRS network.

Cincinnati Bell gets it right!

Wow, two operator stories in one day. Cincinnati Bell, regional fixed/mobile operator here in the US, has soft-launched their UMA service called “Home Run”.

First off: Kudos for the messaging and positioning. They got it right:


The focus on (1) unlimited flat rate calling and (2) improved coverage are dead on for UMA-based services. This is about making your mobile service work better and cost less.

Second, it appears that T-Mobile’s $20/month pricing for HotSpot@Home might be a bit aggressive as Home Run is “as low as $10/month”. Clearly the value of unlimited calls from the home/office is dropping.

Finally, for those who continue to think dual mode handsets are more expensive, the Nokia 6086 offered in the plan is $50 with service contract. That’s quite reasonable for an excellent, full featured UMA device.

N95 with SIP

There has been a flurry of articles about Nokia’s new N95 unit and the subsequent removal of the SIP client by operators supporting the device.

Then finally, as if through devines intervention, word is out that there is a work-around to this tragedy. See the article titled “VoIP Resurrected on the Nokia N95”).

All this leads one to wonder, is it all that surprising? Is it surprising that an operator who supports and likely subsidizes the device isn’t that excited to have a client which can be used to bypass their core service? And just as bizarre, did operators really think they could keep SIP off the N95?

But I think the real interesting story has yet to be written.

The follow on story I’m interested to read is the results of all this fervor 6 months from now. How much use does that SIP client actually receive? Do consumers really want/use two services on their phones?

Presumably some number of these subscribers will hack their N95s and load up a shiny new SIP client. Now subscribers will be able to place SIP/VoIP calls when on Wi-Fi. Fantastic! At this point, the device does not support UMA, so those calls will drop when the user walks out the door of the home/office. Excellent.

As an additional benefit, the Wi-Fi radio will have to be turned on manually and the user will have to start/launch the SIP client. I can’t comment on whether the SIP client can access the phone’s existing address book, I would hope so, but it’s not clear yet.

The final advantage is that when in Wi-Fi, the GSM/3G radio needs to stay on (or calls to your GSM number go to voicemail). Excellent, both Wi-Fi and 3G (or GSM) radios drawing power. Don’t walk too far from a power source.

Is this really what users want? Do they want two services on a phone (SIP/VoIP and standard 3G/GSM) with two phone numbers? Do they want Wi-Fi to be something they need to consciously enable to use, or do they want the phone to stay always best connected?

So perhaps we can set up a follow-on article. We can talk to N95 users and see how much use that SIP client receives. Or how often Wi-Fi actually gets turned on, or how the performance is impacted by having two radios on simultaneously?

It’s unfortunate the N95 doesn’t support UMA (yet?!?!), it could really take advantage of Wi-Fi in a way that’s useful for consumers and operators alike.

UMA-enabled Femtocells?

A common question I get is “when femtocells arrive, won’t they displace UMA?” First off, what is generally meant by this is not ‘...displace UMA’ but more accurately ‘...displace dual-mode handset services.’ UMA, as we all know, is a generic IP access technology that can be used to implement a dual-mode handset (DMH) service with cellular/Wi-Fi phones but it’s not actually tied specifically to Wi-Fi.

However, as a generic IP access technology for mobile services, UMA actually plays a key role in a mass-market femtocell solution.

As the operators begin to plan for a robust deployment with hundreds of thousands of femtocell access points into the network, some stringent requirements have emerged:

- An industry recognized, well defined standard such than any femto AP can be interoperable with any core network controller

- “Internet grade” security to run over the public broadband network

- A high-capacity, scalable controller to support thousands of concurrent connections

- The ability to support “consumer” behaviors of unplugging access points, moving access points, plugging in access points where they don’t belong (different countries)

- A protocol which supports a retail femtocell distribution model such that each AP is “standard” out of the box and can self-configure/attach to the network

- And it goes without saying: cost-effective core network controller solution that will not throw the business case out of whack.

Initially, many suppliers jumped to the conclusion that the existing protocol (known as “Iu-B”) which runs between the radios (or “node-b”) and the controller (or RNC) in a macro UMTS network would be sufficient.

But after digging in a bit, it’s pretty well understood that Iu-b was designed to meet a different set of deployment requirements. Iu-b was architected to support a handful of extremely high capacity radio connected over private, secure, managed links.

This is nearly the exact opposite of a femtocell deployment, with many thousands of low capacity (in terms of concurrent calls) radios, all connected over un-managed and un-secured IP networks.

UMA however, was designed for just such a deployment scenario. UMA offers a well defined, robust protocol with a secure connection to the mobile core. In a DMH deployment, UMA supports hundreds of thousands of devices with relatively low concurrent capacity, quite similar to the femtocell usage model. As a well defined standard, femtocell technology suppliers such as UbiquiSys and others can develop UMA-enabled products which interoperate with UMA controllers from Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson and Alcatel.

As operators begin to leverage the public internet and broadband IP to deliver mobile services, UMA will be used for more applications beyond DHM and femtocells. UMA is truly becoming the ‘Universal’ Mobile Access protocol.