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Danes Getting Hybrid IP Mobiles
praps writes "UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) technology is here — well, in Denmark — meaning users can access mobile and Internet (IP) telephony on the same phone. The same phone that works outside the home as a normal mobile phone that automatically seeks out a mobile network can also be used as an IP phone, which uses wireless technology to make very low-cost calls."
The Nokia E60, E61 and E70 are capable of SIP calls over WiFi.
I'll hopefully be getting mine this week, in the UK.
RegardselFarto
My Nokia E61 let me also use VOIP where WIFI is available. You don't have to have specials telco contracts, so I really don't get the scoop.
Just because you hadn't heard about it, or aren't forward thinking enough to do a search, doesn't mean it's not in the USA. Just because the article said "world's first" didn't make it so.
g 2006/tc20060814_285305.htm
4 6
s &file=article&sid=5708
0 6-7-28-Nokia-Takes-Dual.html
Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/au
Wi-Fi Planet
http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/36287
Daily Wireless:
http://www.dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=New
From the Daily Wireless page:
"Indeed, T-Mobile is not the only telco pushing into at-home wireless services. Already, AT&T (T) expects to introduce two new at-home offerings in the coming months."
This page:
http://www.blackberrytoday.com/articles/2006/7/20
Says there's reportadly 20 UMA trials going on right now.
"Hopefully we'll get IPv6 going so we can speed up cost savers such as this.
Although maybe the cell companies will see this and sabotage the IPv6 process."
Huh? There are at least Nokia and SonyEricsson phones with IPv6 support. TeliaSonera and Ericsson demonstrated IPv6 over GPRS three years ago.
"The only problem I see with this is taking off from the house while in a call. Cell phone latencies for connect are in the multi-second range."
GPRS has latency about 800-900ms, 3G has latency about 200-300ms. That's definitely isn't in "multi-second range".
IPv6 really shouldn't be necessary so long as the router can know which way to forward the incoming voice data.
... if you could make it work at all.
... these all become much easier with IPv6.
That's kind of the problem though.
If you only have one outside-facing IP address, it makes it pretty damn hard to have multiple phones behind the same gateway and receive incoming calls. That's the real benefit of IPv6, you can have an address which is tied to your phone and moves around when it does, rather than having complicated NAT traversal and routing schemes, which are what you'd need with v4
Roaming, incoming calls
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Do you actually know what UMA is? I have absolutely no idea why this complete confusion of ideas keeps coming up. I've even read the once excellent Ars Technica claim UMA is something carriers are scared of. Right now, the only major carriers that might be scared of it in the US are Verizon and Sprint. Because they can't use it. It's a GSM technology.
UMA does not cut into an operator's revenue stream. It frees up revenue because the operator is not having to put up towers to get coverage and capacity for every single building in the world. If YOU, the user, save money, it'll only be because the operator is giving you discounts for using UMA, not because you're sticking it to the man by using it, somehow bypassing the carrier. Far from it. You're using the carrier either way.
UMA is not "I can bypass the cellphone company to make free calls", it's "I can route the last mile of my calls through either the radio waves to a tower or via the Internet to a gateway at my carrier, either way getting to my carrier who'll then route the call as necessary." It's a great technology, but what makes it great is that it means that people can make coverage where they currently have blackspots.
What's confused some people is they've read all this crap about Skype phones, and think that UMA is this. It isn't. It's GSM routed over the Internet. Skype phones are something else entirely.
Other people are confused because they've heard it's VoIP. VoIP does not mean "Cheap ways to bypass the phone companies", it's a just a name given to any form of two-way voice traffic routed over IP packets. Just because using Vonage over cable is "sticking it" to AT&T&T doesn't mean that all forms of VoIP are.
This is why T-Mobile and Cingular are members of the UMA consortium and are planning to roll it out here in the US. Yes, they are. Yes, they've made announcements to that effect. It may make calls cheaper. More importantly though it'll make calling more reliable. No more blackspots in the kitchen. Nice.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Dude, update yoru worldview, most state owned companies have been sold off to private investors in the last 10 years.
The two biggest examples are the railways and the telephone company, but there are many more.
The Danish Radio (think: BBC), the hospitals and educational system are still run by the state, but to great benefit for all so that's not likely to change.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
Nokia has also been doing a pilot in the town of Oulu in Finland, using Nokia 6136 phones. From the article "The pilot project is a joint cooperation between Nokia, the DNA/Finnet group and the City of Oulu".