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.

Four Out of Five Agree: UMA for Femtocells

Before MWC, I wrote about the incredible amount of UMA-based femtocell news, calling it a ‘femto frenzy’ of activity.

Within the world of femtocells, there are a chosen few committed to the existing 3GPP UMA/GAN standard. All of the other systems/solutions are proprietary. The “UMA-enabled Femtocell” world consists of many key players:

- Solution provider NEC
- Solution provider Motorola
- Femtocell provider Ubiquisys
- Femtocell provider Motorola
- Femtocell provider Netgear

So, let’s count the number of announced operator femtocell trials and see where UMA is involved:

1. During MWC, pan-European mobile operator O2 announced they were conducting a femtocell trial with NEC.

2. Also during MWC, Scandinavian provider Telia announced a femtocell trial based with Motorola.

3. Then just this week, an article from Fierce Wireless editor Brian Dolan suggests that T-Mobile International will be trialing Ubiquisys femtocells with NEC.

4. Softbank in Japan has announced trials with nearly every supplier on the market, including Ubiquisys, NEC and Motorola.

5. The only other announced trial I’m aware of is Vodafone Group’s announcement to trial Alcatel/Lucent and Huawei, clearly not a UMA-based trial.

Unless I’m mistaken (which I’m sure you’ll to tell me if I am):

Four out of five femtocell trials include a UMA-based system.

This reminds me of the old Trident gum ad where “four out of five dentists agree…”

I attribute this to a couple of reasons:

- It works. Novel but true. UMA has been commercially deployed for more than two years.

- Operators actually want a standard interface. As much as Alcatel/Lucent, Huawei, and even Nokia/Siemens are trying to push their own proprietary approaches, the operators have had enough. They want an open, public standard interface for femtocells.

- UMA does more than one thing. After deploying a femtocell service, a mobile operator may want to add a fixed line VoIP service (like T-Mobile US). The same UMA infrastructure supports that, or dual-mode phones, or softmobiles.

Next, let's see if we can get to 9 out of ten...

[UPDATE MARCH 20] Good posted on ThinkFemto about a similar topic. I have a bit more detail. For some reason, ThinkFemto decided to throw in a bunch of picocell wins that ip.Access got, but they aren't femtocells.

UMA-based Femtos on Trial

One of the big news items of this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) was femtocells. As reported here, there was a ‘femto frenzy’ building in the market. Then on Monday, two UMA-based femtocell trial announcements hit the wire.

The first was O2, announcing they are trialing a femtocell system from NEC. This was on the heels of NEC announcing their femtocell solution.

Second Telia announced plans for a femtocell trial to complement their Home Free dual-mode handset service. I recommend clicking through on the link, it’s an excellent way to work on your Swedish. Telia has been very aggressive in rolling out Home Free across Telia properties and has used a UMA-based solution from Motorola for some time.

I think UMA is starting to have an effect on the femtocell market. Clearly operators see the advantages (fastest time to market, fastest time to standards, robust, proven, investment protection for new FMC applications) and I’m certain there will be more UMA-based femtocell announcements to come.

Telia: UMA and IMS! not really...

When I first saw the headline “TeliaSonera Plans IMS Service in 2008” in Informa's IMS Vision newsletter, I was excited. Telia is a progressive operator and they are investing heavily in their UMA-based dual-mode service called HomeFree. I was certain they were going to combine IMS services onto UMA devices and have seamlessly mobility to Wi-Fi for IMS applications.

Alas, that is not the case. The article interviews Goran Eriksson, TeliaSonera’s head of technology for the broadband/fixed line side of the business.

'The main driver for TeliaSonera to ramp up IMS in the fixed side of the business is to upgrade and enhance its VoIP services and the first ‘IMS service’ that TeliaSonera subscribers will use will be VoIP, in 2008.’

So this is the state of IMS today...

Near the end of the article, it is mentioned that VCC is available from the vendor Telia has chosen for network infrastructure. Mr. Eriksson was coy about any plans. VCC for a fixed operator, what a surprise.

Informa's very successful 2nd UMA conference

Last week Informa held its second UMA conference in Cannes. Overall it was a very successful event, with 8 presentations from operators (two from Orange). All the key players were there in force, including Alcatel, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia and Kineto.

In addition, there were many operators who had come to hear about the market and the successes to date. They weren’t disappointed, Orange, Telia and Telecom Italia all presented on the status of their deployments and feedback on the successes.

While it would not be appropriate for me to recite information verbatim, we did get excellent insight into metric of UMA users. Also, Telia shared a very clever television commercial they are running in Denmark for their HomeFree service. It highlighted their fixed/mobile offer and the key benefits. No wonder there is so much demand.

One very interesting presentation was from NXP on their efforts to increase battery performance for UMA devices. The net result is that NXP now has an extremely competitive platform which, in their words, offers up to 9 hrs talk time and 200 hrs standby-time for UMA-enabled handsets. I believe that meets the GSM bar. Kudos to NXP.

Will Franks with UbiquiSys offered an insightful presentation on femtocell technology and how dual-mode handsets and femtos will likely co-exist in the market.

There were two key themes at the event:

First, the industry absolutely needs more handsets. I believe in the coming months, two things will happen. First, there are a LOT of devices in the pipeline, and they will come to market. This is immediately very good news. Second, I believe the operators are beginning to realize the need to actively pursue the handset eco-system for more models. This means being more public about their services and the successes to date.

Second, several operators presented why they chose to go with UMA and not an alternative solution like VCC/IMS. I think hearing the feedback directly from operators on the evaluation process they went through and why they are skeptical or down-right dismissive of VCC was extremely validating for me. As you recall, this is the year I believe the industry will begin to realize just how limiting VCC truly is (witness DT dropping their pre-VCC “T-One service).

All in all, it was excellent. For those of you who didn’t make it, don’t hesitate to send me a note if you’d like to get more information. Next year’s event promises to be even better.

Telia talks UMA

Kenneth Karlberg, president of TeliaSonera, was interviewed by Martin Warick of Telecom TV at the 3GSM show. The whole discussion is on convergence. Kenneth gets to UMA in the fourth minute. For some reason, the video ends abruptly. It's still quite interesting.

http://www.telecomtv.com/3gsmtv/index.asp?ttv_id=1063&newsdesk=ttv&uid=9111&url=3gsmtv/index.asp?ttv_id=1063&campchaz=od&list=interviews