Kineto Wireless, Inc., has surpassed its goals for industry adoption of its UMA products, and that overall demand for the 3GPP convergence technology by operators and equipment providers worldwide is growing rapidly.

"2005 was an exceptional year for Kineto and UMA. As the key innovator of UMA technology and the only company providing end-to-end handset software and network infrastructure solutions for UMA, we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the worldwide demand for fixed-mobile convergence services," said Rick Gilbert, chief executive officer for Kineto Wireless. "The momentum for UMA in the market is tremendous. With UMA now a formal global standard, major mobile operators committing to UMA deployments, and leading handset and infrastructure vendors delivering UMA solutions based on Kineto's proven technology, all the pieces are now in place for widespread commercial UMA deployments in 2006."

UMA Achieves Global Standardization

In April 2005, UMA achieved global standardization when the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) ratified the UMA specification as part of its Release 6, ensuring standardized approaches for handsets and infrastructure equipment to speed adoption of mobile/Wi-Fi convergence. First announced by the UMA participating companies in September 2004, the specification became a 3GPP global standard in less than eight months, clearly demonstrating the strong operator demand for UMA technology.

Ovum's senior wireless analyst Jeremy Green commented, "In the evolution of fixed mobile convergence, UMA has played a critical role in turning abstract ideas into concrete products and services that are available right now. It has built on existing technology and architectures to deliver an easy-to-deploy solution for fixed and mobile operators alike."

Major Operators and Vendors Commit to UMA

Further showcasing industry demand for UMA, several of the world's leading operators -- British Telecom, Telecom Italia and TeliaSonera -- have announced their intent to deploy the technology as part of their strategic fixed-mobile convergence initiatives. In addition, Kineto is actively involved in UMA evaluations with more than 25 major operators around the globe.

The leading mobile equipment vendors also embraced UMA in 2005. To date, the four largest handset suppliers (Samsung, LG Electronics, Motorola, and Nokia) as well as four major mobile infrastructure suppliers (Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel and Ericsson) announced their intent to deliver UMA solutions to the market. In support of these vendors UMA efforts, Kineto has announced technology partnerships or licensing agreements with Nokia, Samsung, LGE, Infineon, and Philips Electronics.

Significant Subscriber Demand Shown for UMA Services

An August 2005 survey commissioned by Motorola of more than one thousand consumers in major European markets found that over 50 percent of respondents would consider changing operators to access a UMA service. That same survey also reports that if mobile calls in the home were priced the same as fixed-line calls, 50 percent of those polled would sign up for UMA service within 12 months.

To that end, industry research firm Northstream concluded in a September report titled "UMA Paves the Way for Convergence" that UMA is the only realistic solution for implementing a standardized, consumer-oriented fixed-mobile convergence service providing seamless handover among mobile and WLAN networks today and in the near future. Finally, a recent report from Unstrung Insider titled, "Fixed/Mobile Convergence, UMA, and IMS: An Unstrung Reality Check" concludes that momentum behind UMA ensures it will emerge as the initial mechanism for fixed/mobile convergence, and that commitment to the approach from major operators, attracted by its simplicity, is building rapidly.

UMA Proven to Drive IMS Deployment

It was also successfully demonstrated this year how UMA can be used to accelerate the delivery of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) services. In October 2005, Kineto and Infineon Technologies demonstrated IMS and UMA technologies working together to facilitate the rapid delivery of IMS services across a broadband Wi-Fi access network. The companies also demonstrated the seamless handover of several IMS-based applications, including push-to-talk and presence, using UMA technology to show session continuity between mobile and Wi-Fi access networks.