The Last Remaining Barrier to UMA Technology in the US

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060410-6568.html' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...60410-6568.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Cell phones are fantastic tools for making oneself available; no one disputes that. The problem is coverage and occasional weak reception indoors or at the edge of a cell. For some time, cell phones with built-in support for 802.11b/g and the capability to make calls over VoIP have been touted as a solution to the problem... The big question is when these phones will make it to market. At CES in January of this year, I spent some time at the Nokia booth... they had a couple of prototype WiFi/cellular phones that looked very cool. The problem, he explained, was getting any US carrier to agree to stock and support a phone with WiFi VoIP capability."</i><br /><br />We've been talking about UMA on-and-off now for sometime. It certainly appears that the technology is ready and in my opinion, the market is ripe for this solution... but the question is how long will the US cellular carriers be able to delay its introduction? At what point does the market demand win over the protectionism of an industry's revenue stream?

[fresh-popcorn]

Wouldnt $5.00 per month be a fair amount to pay for UMA?
Heck we already paid for the hardware, plus we paid for broadband connection how much freaking more money does the cellular companies need to suck out of us for a unlicenced spectrum that they didnt need to put any more money into building out?

[wirelessbeachbum]

Wouldnt $5.00 per month be a fair amount to pay for UMA?
Heck we already paid for the hardware, plus we paid for broadband connection how much freaking more money does the cellular companies need to suck out of us for a unlicenced spectrum that they didnt need to put any more money into building out?

The carrier point of view is they paid for their licensed spectrum and make revenue by selling airtime and minute packages. I no longer work for a carrier, but my bet is that the first packages come out in the $25-35 price point, as a competition to Vonage and the like. I guess some technology issues would need to be resolved such as e911, and cloning/ security issues. I also believe that the initial roll out's will be limited to home or business based wifi, not public hotspots....(except for maybe TMobile.)

My point is carriers are not going to implement it unless they can make money, the larger carriers are already gaining more customers each quarter than they really have the capacity to keep up with, so they will look to price these services based on revenue growth not subscriber growth.