Unlicensed Mobile Access
Nokia and other participating companies recently released jointly developed specifications for Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA).
UMA enables access to GSM and GPRS mobile services over unlicensed spectrum technologies such as Bluetooth and WiFi with security equivalent to GSM. In other words, subscribers will be able to roam and handover between cellular networks and public and private unlicensed wireless networks using dual-mode mobile handsets while maintaining access to mobile services.
Re-read the paragraph above and think about this a bit. Very powerful stuff.
Learn more from the UMA site via its Overview and Technology pages. Or dive into the details by reading the specifications.
What next? UMA is being introduced into 3GPP for official standardization, so hopefully a seemless cellular and WiFi roaming experience will be coming to handsets near you in the not too distant future.
