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.

Nanoradio Turns On UMA

Nanoradio is a Swedish-based fabless semiconductor supplier that has developed a unique WLAN chipset which features ultra-low power consumption, the smallest package (their claim) and ‘unique’ support for audio applications.

If you think this would be perfect for a UMA-enabled handset, apparently you’re not alone.

Today Nanoradio issued a press release stating its technology is in the world’s first 3G UMA handset. At first I thought they meant the Sony Ericsson G705u, but in fact they were talking about the Samsung P270, quietly announced in Orange’s press release about expanding Unik to support 3G devices.

In a follow-on article, the company refers to an as yet unannounced UMA device, the Samsung P250. Excellent.

The article also mentioned that the Nanoradio ‘…Wi-Fi solution doubles the standby and talktime...’ when in UMA. Not bad, considering UMA already outperforms cellular for some RIM devices.

From the company’s web site, Nanoradio suggests its WLAN chip uses just 6mW in a voice call, compared with 37mW for Bluetooth 1.2 and 50 mW for Bluetooth 2.0. Very impressive.

It’s clear that Nanoradio is dispelling the myths about Wi-Fi being power hungry. With ABI Research predicting more than 300 million dual-mode phones in the coming years, the future looks very bright.

A Good Week For Handsets (and it's only Wednesday!)

T-Mobile is starting to make good on their promise to bring 10 new HotSpot @Home handsets to market in 2008. Heck, two hit the rumor mill this week alone!

First is the new Samsung T339, a feature-rich mid-tier handset which continues to push Samsung into the upper echelons of DMH supplier.

Second, a rumor broke on HTC’s Shadow II (shown), the appropriately named follow-on to the Shadow currently available from T-Mobile. This is notable for being the first Windows Mobile device with UMA available from T-Mobile.

All this happens in the same week that the UMA-enabled Blackberry Pearl shows up on the shelves of T-Mobile stores nationwide.

T-Mobile is definitely on a roll.

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.

3G 'dual-mode' phones are on the way

As the dual-mode handset (DMH) market continues its explosive growth, the focus for devices in 2008 has started to shift. With nearly 20 UMA-based dual mode 2G phones, there’s now solid demand for UMA-based 3G devices.

One of the most exciting announcements at the Mobile World Congress this year was platform support for UMA-enabled 3G/2G/Wi-Fi handsets. I guess we can’t call them ‘dual-mode’, perhaps we’re going to have to move to ‘multi-mode’ devices.

There were two 3G platform announcements:

First, NXP, a long-time supporter of UMA-enabled platforms announced support for a 3G/UMTS version of their Nexperia product line. NXP is supplier to UMA-device powerhouse Samsung, so look for 3G handsets from them in the future.

Second was an announcement that Qualcomm and Kineto have developed a UMA-enabled version of their 72xx series platform. Qualcomm’s market position makes this a very strategic announcement, opening up the potential for UMA-enabled devices from many different handset manufacturers.

This is a 'rolls down hill' type of business. Operators decide what they need. They put pressure on their handset suppliers. The handset suppliers turn to their platform suppliers to get platforms to meet those requirements. The platform suppliers work with the component providers to develop sub-systems to meet the need.

It's clear that demand from the top continues to be strong for UMA-enabled handsets.

Samsung stays on a roll with the new P220

This week Orange began selling Samsung’s latest UMA-enabled handset, the P220. This sleek candy-bar model is the seventh model from Samsung. All the models are based on NXP’s highly optimized UMA/Wi-Fi platform which delivers stellar Wi-Fi performance (battery, range).

Samsung continues to roll as the leading supplier of UMA-enabled devices. At last check, 25% of the Samsung models for sale on the Orange/France website were UMA-enabled.

Samsung's P180

We here at UMA Today work hard to keep up with all the new UMA devices. But they are coming out so fast now that apparently we missed one.

In early December, LifeAtMost.com, a tracking site for devices, ran a sneak peak of the new Samsung P180 mid-tier feature phone. The device is targeted at the European market. We haven't seen it for sale yet, but expect it to be available shortly.

That brings the total count for UMA-enabled handsets to 16 devices.

Samsung T739 to T-Mobile

As reported by Engadget, the Samsung T739 should be available at T-Mobile Dec 3. How does Engadget know?

This brings the number of HotSpot@Home phones to four (Nokia 6086, T409, T739, RIM). Not bad.

A vision of convergence

Recently a very unique event took place. Four visionary leaders in UMA technology sat down with Ed Sperling, editor in chief of Electronic News, for a round table discussion about convergence, mobile/Wi-Fi services and UMA technology. In attendance were Muzibul Khan, VP of product management and engineering at Samsung; Ton van Kampen, VP of business development at NXP; Chris Caldwell, product development manager at T-Mobile, and Mark Powell, VP and founder of Kineto Wireless.

Take a moment to read the full article.

All dual-mode phones are NOT alike

A common misconception is that all dual-mode phones are the same. Many people consider Wi-Fi enabled phones to be expensive and have poor battery life.

I’d like to dispel this myth by making a distinction between UMA and non-UMA enabled devices. I concur that non-UMA dual-mode handsets are often higher end (and therefore more expensive) and have poor battery performance (when in Wi-Fi). However, UMA-enabled devices are often mid-tier feature phones with respectable if not ‘stellar’ battery performance.

Fundamentally, UMA is a technology for mobile operators. It is designed to make Wi-Fi (and IP and broadband) ‘friendly’ to the mobile operator. So, what is UMA’s secret?

When a UMA-enabled dual-mode phone enters a known Wi-Fi coverage area (home, office), the phone automatically and seamlessly switches from the GSM network to the Wi-Fi network. Now the connection between the phone and the mobile network is over the public internet rather than the GSM radio access network. Because it’s not used when the phone is in Wi-Fi coverage, the GSM radio is put into a sleep/hibernate mode.

If/when a call arrives for the handset, the call is routed through the UMA tunnel over the internet to the handset, and the GSM radio is not used.

This is one key element of improving battery performance in UMA-enabled handsets. By putting the GSM radio in a sleep mode, the phone continues to run a single radio. Anyone who has run their Bluetooth radio all day knows that having two radios on in a phone significantly impacts the battery performance.

Contrast this with the operation of a non-UMA dual-mode phone. As the phone enters a known Wi-Fi location, generally the user needs to turn on or enable the Wi-Fi radio. Primarily this is because the battery impact is so great that ‘automatic’ Wi-Fi usage would have the un-intended consequence of sucking the battery dry.

Now with the Wi-Fi radio is operating and associated with an access point. But to make or receive GSM calls, the GSM radio must remain on as well. In a non-UMA device, the only connection between the mobile core network and the handset is over the existing GSM link. In this case, Wi-Fi is simply a bolt-on to the phone’s primary function as a GSM communications device.

There are many implications of this ‘bolt on’ approach.

First, people with non-UMA devices don’t use the Wi-Fi connection much if at all. The performance hit to the handset is too great for regular usage. Certainly with iPhone, the largest selling dual-mode device on the market, most people tend to use the EDGE data connection rather than Wi-Fi.

Second, there is no session mobility for non-UMA devices. Start surfing on the Wi-Fi connection, and if you walk out the door to GSM, that connection is lost. Wi-Fi and GSM are typically completely different subsystems on a non-UMA device. Of course with UMA, there is full session mobility for voice, data and IMS applications between Wi-Fi and the GSM network.

Third, because Wi-Fi is typically bolted onto a non-UMA device for basic data services, the Wi-Fi sub-system is not optimized for a mobile device. This was a common problem for the first UMA-enabled handsets. The Wi-Fi subsystems were simply ported from laptops and behaved like they were running on (relatively) power in-sensitive devices like PCs rather than on handsets.

Companies like NXP have invested tremendous resources in optimizing Wi-Fi (radio, stacks) to be voice-centric rather than laptop/PC centric. This optimization has paid off well, as the performance of their t409 product achieves 8 hours of talk time in Wi-Fi, according to one analyst.

Many see dual-mode devices as the next growth opportunity for Wi-Fi. This is certainly true. But there is a big difference between non-UMA and UMA-enabled devices.

Samsung brings another... the P260

Samsung has announced several new phones this week including the P260, called the replacement for the early P200. It is my understanding that this device is based on the highly optimized NXP 5210 platform. This is the platform in T-Mobile T409 device.

It looks like Samsung/NXP have a hit with this platform combo and they will be extending it into as many devices as possible.

Other specs for Samsung P260 slider include:

• 262K color 240×320 pixel display
• 2 megapixel camera
• 25MB internal and microSD memory card
• MP3/MPEG4 media player with flight mode
• Stereo Bluetooth and USB connectivity
• 960 mAh Lion batter with 3h talk and 220 h stand-by
• Dimensions: 101×50x17 mm
• Weight: 119g

Look for this device in Europe initially. There are rumors of a US version of this slider phone coming to T-Mobile as well.