UMA . . . and beyond March 22, 2006 By Gerry Blackwell
The not particularly momentous launch of Nokia’s UMA-enabled 6136 phone at the 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona last month touched off an interesting, and surprisingly far-reaching, debate among industry provocateurs about the very future of telephony. We take it even further.
Does UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access), a technology that allows GSM carriers to seamlessly hand off calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, spell doom for VoIP service providers such as Vonage and Skype? Do mobile carriers have more to gain or to lose by offering UMA-style fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services? Will FMC radically alter the telephony landscape? Or are other far more powerful mountain-leveling forces at work?
UMA gives mobile carriers the technological wherewithal to offer multi-domain, converged wireless and wireline services. Subscribers can use a single handset to make VoIP calls using a carrier-provided service over a Wi-Fi network at home or office, and to make wireless calls over the cellular network when mobile. One phone, one bill, service everywhere. And when you move from domain to domain, the phone hands off the call without interruption.
British Telecom has been offering its UMA-based BT Fusion service since the fall of 2005. UK-based Jupiter Research senior analyst Ian Fogg says BT Fusion has already attracted over 30,000 subscribers. Though small in the greater scheme of things, that number is an indication that users see value in this proposition.
Threat or promise? But while UMA/FMC may be a no-brainer for users, will mobile carriers see the benefit? It's interesting, Fogg notes, that in the UK, it wasn't one of the mobile carriers that embraced UMA first, but BT, primarily a wireline carrier. "Certainly the received wisdom is that mobile operators have most to gain," he says. "But maybe they've actually got more to lose."
In Europe, especially, a small but significant chunk of cellular calls are made from home. So, yes, offering FMC services may help mobile carriers lure customers from wireline service providers, especially VoIP providers. They will gain that additional revenue, but they also stand to lose revenue because subscribers will now be making VoIP calls from home and office instead of cell calls, at much lower per-minute rates.
If you believe mobile carriers will decide that the customer-winning benefits outweigh the revenue-diminishing risks—and the expense—of implementing UMA or something similar, it makes sense that VoIP service providers, especially Vonage-style providers, will be in jeopardy. Why would subscribers stay with a Vonage if they could get the same low-cost VoIP service for home from a much better established mobile carrier—and get fixed-mobile convergence, and get bill consolidation?
San Francisco-based journalist Andrew Orlowski, riffing in The Register on the introduction of the Nokia 6136, suggested for basically these reasons that UMA spelled lights out for both the Vonages and the Skypes of this world. "Utter bollocks!" retorted UK-based consultant Martin Geddes at his Web site, Telepocalypse. (That's Brit for 'horse feathers,' only less polite.) Not that Geddes sets great store by Vonage, UMA, or even Skype. He has another, much more challenging take on how the telephony world is unfolding and where UMA and FMC fit.
Geddes describes his business as consulting about "the collision of the IP and telecom industries." Clients include handset manufacturers, and more recently, carriers. He helps companies come up with the right business models for long-term success in a rapidly changing world.
"Things like UMA," he says, "are simply perpetuating the old model of vertical integration of network and service."
“Microsoft's not promising the world with Windows Mobile 6.5, nor are they delivering it -- it's very much a stopgap, complete with duct tape, bubble gum, and Bondo.”
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UMA . . . and beyond
March 22, 2006
By Gerry Blackwell
The not particularly momentous launch of Nokia’s UMA-enabled 6136 phone at the 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona last month touched off an interesting, and surprisingly far-reaching, debate among industry provocateurs about the very future of telephony. We take it even further.
Does UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access), a technology that allows GSM carriers to seamlessly hand off calls between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, spell doom for VoIP service providers such as Vonage and Skype? Do mobile carriers have more to gain or to lose by offering UMA-style fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) services? Will FMC radically alter the telephony landscape? Or are other far more powerful mountain-leveling forces at work?
UMA gives mobile carriers the technological wherewithal to offer multi-domain, converged wireless and wireline services. Subscribers can use a single handset to make VoIP calls using a carrier-provided service over a Wi-Fi network at home or office, and to make wireless calls over the cellular network when mobile. One phone, one bill, service everywhere. And when you move from domain to domain, the phone hands off the call without interruption.
British Telecom has been offering its UMA-based BT Fusion service since the fall of 2005. UK-based Jupiter Research senior analyst Ian Fogg says BT Fusion has already attracted over 30,000 subscribers. Though small in the greater scheme of things, that number is an indication that users see value in this proposition.
Threat or promise?
But while UMA/FMC may be a no-brainer for users, will mobile carriers see the benefit? It's interesting, Fogg notes, that in the UK, it wasn't one of the mobile carriers that embraced UMA first, but BT, primarily a wireline carrier. "Certainly the received wisdom is that mobile operators have most to gain," he says. "But maybe they've actually got more to lose."
In Europe, especially, a small but significant chunk of cellular calls are made from home. So, yes, offering FMC services may help mobile carriers lure customers from wireline service providers, especially VoIP providers. They will gain that additional revenue, but they also stand to lose revenue because subscribers will now be making VoIP calls from home and office instead of cell calls, at much lower per-minute rates.
If you believe mobile carriers will decide that the customer-winning benefits outweigh the revenue-diminishing risks—and the expense—of implementing UMA or something similar, it makes sense that VoIP service providers, especially Vonage-style providers, will be in jeopardy. Why would subscribers stay with a Vonage if they could get the same low-cost VoIP service for home from a much better established mobile carrier—and get fixed-mobile convergence, and get bill consolidation?
San Francisco-based journalist Andrew Orlowski, riffing in The Register on the introduction of the Nokia 6136, suggested for basically these reasons that UMA spelled lights out for both the Vonages and the Skypes of this world. "Utter bollocks!" retorted UK-based consultant Martin Geddes at his Web site, Telepocalypse. (That's Brit for 'horse feathers,' only less polite.) Not that Geddes sets great store by Vonage, UMA, or even Skype. He has another, much more challenging take on how the telephony world is unfolding and where UMA and FMC fit.
Geddes describes his business as consulting about "the collision of the IP and telecom industries." Clients include handset manufacturers, and more recently, carriers. He helps companies come up with the right business models for long-term success in a rapidly changing world.
"Things like UMA," he says, "are simply perpetuating the old model of vertical integration of network and service."