By the looks of carriers' requests for proposals (RFPs), several U.S. and European carriers are gearing up to deploy WiFi/cellular roaming services based on the UMA (unlicensed mobile access) spec. Kineto Wireless says it has responded to about 15 RFPs for UMA deployments in the last six months. BT launched UMA services last fall and analysts expect TeliaSonera, T-Mobile USA and others to do the same by the end of this year. Kineto said they heard T-Mobile will even be airing television ads about their upcoming UMA service. While T-Mobile has decided on UMA, others see IMS as a more comprehensive alternative right around the corner. "We were looking at [UMA], but when we explored the timing of both there was little difference in availability, and IMS is a better platform for convergence--beyond cellular and WiFi," Cingular's spokesman Ritch Blasi said.
For more on upcoming UMA deployments:
- take a look at this article from LightReading