Unlicensed Mobile Access

Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology grants access to GSM and GPRS mobile services over unlicensed spectrum technologies, including Bluetooth and WiFi. Service providers, by enabling UMA technology, can enable subscriber roam and smoothly handover between cellular networks and between private and public unlicensed wireless networks using dual-mode mobile handsets. In the usual handover process between networks the user experience is not so good, but the UMA technology makes this process simple and provides the user with a nice experience during handover in both voice and data transfers. the convergence of mobile, fixed and Internet telephony (fixed-mobile convergence).

The core components of the system are:

• UMA enabled dual mode handset.
• UMA Network Controller (UNC) with broadband access
• Unlicensed Mobile Access Network (UMAN)

The roaming process is completely transparent to the user. The handover process is also transparent.

In order to promote the use of UMA, a number of leading companies like Kineto, Motorola, Alcatel etc. have developed an open standard. These standards are available to vendors and carriers of the mobile communications systems to develop and deploy their own solutions. addition to developing and maintaining the initial specifications, the participating companies are actively working with the 3GPP standards organization to use the specifications as the basis for the development of a formal standard.