The 3GPP UMA standard was born from the requirements of mobile and integrated operators to deliver high-performance, low-cost mobile voice and data services to subscribers at home and the office.
In December 2003, 14 leading mobile operators and vendors agreed to develop an open set of specifications to enable the delivery of mobile circuit, packet, and IMS-based services over any IP-based access network, including the Internet. The participating companies also agreed to publish the specifications when complete, as well as introduce them to a recognized standards body for consideration as a true global standard. |
|
In September 2004, the participating companies published the initial UMA specifications and formally introduced them to the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards body. In April 2005, an unprecedented eight months later, the UMA specifications were incorporated into the 3GPP release 6 specifications. While referred to as "Generic Access Network" or GAN, within the 3GPP specifications, the common name of UMA has continued to be recognized as the standard for extending mobile circuit, packet and IMS-based services over IP access networks.
Soon after the adoption of the UMA specifications into 3GPP, a steady stream of vendors began announcing UMA-compatible infrastructure and device solutions. Starting in mid-2006, mobile operators around the world began announcing their intention to deploy dual-mode handset (DMH)-based UMA services. In 2007, commercial offers are available from Orange, T-Mobile, Telia Sonera, Cincinnati Bell, Rogers Wireless and more.
Mid-2006 saw the rise of femtocells, low-powered licensed radios designed to improve coverage and customer satisfaction of 3G data services in subscriber's homes. UMA, as a standardized, secure and highly scalable protocol for extending mobile services over the public internet, has quickly become the de-facto standard for integrating hundreds of thousands of femtocells into the mobile core network.
Throughout 2007 there were constant announcement of new UMA-enabled dual-mode phones to support the commercial service offers. In addition, the rise of UMA-based femtocell solutions were announced from femtocell vendors. But perhaps most importantly, the 3GPP completed the work to add the Iu interface to the UMA/GAN standard, thus paving the way for UMA to become the standardized protocol between femtocells and the core network.
In early 2008, the first commercial UMA-based fixed line VoIP service appeared as well as the first UMA-enabled softmobile client. In addition there have been several announcements of UMA-based femtocell trials.
At the end of 2008, the first 3G/UMA handsets and service offers were introduced. Now mobile operators are able to use Wi-Fi to improve the coverage and performance of 3G services when subscribers are indoors.
UMA has proven to be the ideal standard for mobile and integrated operators to extend circuit, packet and IMS services over the public Internet and continues to evolve to meet the needs of mobile and integrated operators worldwide.
|
