UMA is a 3GPP standard technology which encapsulates GSM traffic for routing over a fixed-line connection via a wireless router. The phone from Tangjeong, Korea-based Samsung is the SGH-P200 and is so far only available in Italy.
It comes with a 1.3-megapixel camera and 80MB of share internal memory, with connectivity going up to EDGE, i.e. the 2.75G variant of GSM, and as far as it can go without moving to 3G (i.e. W-CDMA, which is not supported by UMA).
Samsung licensed UMA technology from Kineto Wireless Inc, whose client technology it is using on the handsets, as well as its UMA Network Controllers in the core of the carrier network to set up the tunnels and route the traffic.
UMA is only one facet of voice-over-WiFi telephony, of course, designed specifically to enable carriers to offer fixed-mobile convergence services, particularly in the consumer and SoHo parts of the market. Samsung also makes WiFi-only phones which it markets to SMBs, though it is still a relatively small player vis-a-vis the likes of SpectraLink.
Single-mode WiFi VoIP handsets continue to penetrate the enterprise market, and with D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear all launching products, we expect increasing adoption in the consumer market, too, said Richard Webb, directing wireless analyst with Infonetics Research. But the real growth will come from dual-mode WiFi/cellular handsets.
