BenQ's getting UMA in the P50
UMA? Yeah, we haven't heard anything about it for awhile either, but you know something's up when you've got big names associated with it such as AT&T Wireless, BT, Cingular, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel, O2, Research in Motion, Sony-Ericsson and T-Mobile, to name a few. To bring you back up to speed, the idea is that UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access)-enabled devices would, in theory, have seamless data transmission handoffs between GSM and unlicensed spectrum data networks (i.e. WiFi and Bluetooth), taking a phone call or GPRS (no mention of EDGE or UMTS) session, and transmitting to a UMA end-point over the public Internet (to save costs, no doubt), and back onto the carrier's network. Where are we going with all this? Well, UMA's primary software and tools provider, some firm called Kineto Wireless, has announced they're going to be UMA-enabling their first device soon, BenQ's forthcoming WiFi/Bluetooth-equipped P50. Yeah, that P50. Okay, so maybe we'll be willing to take back a little of that P50 smack talk if UMA works as advertised, but we're not going to hold our breath, bated or otherwise.
[Thanks, Guttrhead]
