Barcelona, from mobile TV pilot project to UMA

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 03/06/2006 7:46 AM  |  Life

Zatni Arbi, Contributor, Jakarta

There was one really exciting surprise during last month's 3GSM World Congress 2006 in Barcelona. In his keynote speech, Nokia's CEO Jorma Ollila announced that Indonesia was going to have a mobile TV pilot project. More details were revealed immediately afterward, when Nokia and PT Elang Mahkota Technology (EMTEK) group signed the agreement before a group of IT journalists from Indonesia and Thailand. The cooperative deal, which will involve EMTEK's subsidiaries PT Mediatama Citra Abadi (PT MECA) and PT Surya Citra Televisi (PT SCTV), will enable the project's participants to watch TV programs on their DVB-H capable mobile devices.

The plan is to have PT MECA serving as the main aggregator of the content offerings and the broadcast platform operator, while local television station SCTV will be one of the content providers and Nokia will provide its Mobile Broadcast Solution as well as the necessary handsets for the pilot project.

The six-month trial, which will start in the second half of 2006, aims at gauging consumer acceptance in Indonesia and assessing the preferred method of subscriptions. For example, will our consumers pay a flat monthly rate, or will a pay-per-view scheme be more suitable? It is also intended to showcase the technology, its benefits -- including the possibilities of using it for educational purposes -- and business potentials. It will also serve to demonstrate the effectiveness in frequency usage of the digital TV as opposed to the currently used analog TV broadcast technology.

By the way, besides in Finland, France, Germany, U.K. and the U.S., DVB-H services have been piloted in a number of countries on this side of the world, including Australia, Singapore and Malaysia. Handsets with DVB-H capability are available from a growing number of vendors, including LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sagem, Samsung and Sony-Ericsson. Sony-Ericsson has also signed an agreement with Nokia to ensure interoperability of their DVB-H products.

Surely, there were a number of other important announcements made during the four-day event in the Spanish Mediterranean city. And, as I had anticipated, we would be hearing dozens of new tech terms. One of them was UMA, short for Unlicensed Mobile Access.

UMA is a 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) Release 6 technology. It enables seamless access to GSM's voice and data services from a UMA-based infrastructure such as Wi-Fi Wireless LAN or Bluetooth. In other words, UMA is a way for a cellular operator to extend the delivery of its existing services into the home or office building. So, for example, if we happen to be in a data session and in the middle of downloading a huge presentation file from the Internet, the session will not be interrupted as we are entering a building and are being handed over by the UMA network controller from GPRS to WLAN, for example. If you recall my report on Motorola's vision Seamless Mobility a few weeks ago, the UMA is certainly an important component that enables the seamless session transfer from one technology to another.

During the event, Nokia announced its UMA solution, which is scheduled to become available in Q2 of this year. It will include a UMA Network Controller (UNC), which makes possible the seamless link between the WLAN and GSM network. Depending on the agreement between the operator and the customer, the WLAN can be owned by the earlier or the latter.

Nokia also launched its first UMA handset-also known as dual mode handset. This device, the Nokia 6136, is a regular GSM cellphone where the GSM coverage is the only network available. However, if we take it into a building-a corporate office or even a home-where a Wi-Fi hotspot is available, then the cellphone will automatically switch its connection to the hotspot. The voice communication will be based on Voice over IP. The move from the GSM will be seamless.

Why is UMA attracting a lot of interest? First, it can save an enterprise a lot of cost as voice communication will be based on Internet Protocol. Second, further cost savings is possible for companies that use public or private UMA network, as they will only need to maintain one single network instead of two separate networks (one for telephony and one for data).

Keep in mind, too, that only allowed devices can access a UMA Wi-Fi network. So, even if you have access to an internal Wireless LAN, you can only use the UMA dual mode handset if this device is allowed to access the UMA network.

People are still uncertain how they are going to use the Wi-Fi capability. While UMA proponents believe that the ability to move back and forth between a GSM and a Wireless LAN without a hiccup, others expect the users to use the Wi-Fi feature to connect to other Wi-Fi devices including a photo printer.

Nonetheless, Nokia 6136 is the first UMA handset from Nokia. It is a flip phone, and it has a slew of high-end features such as quadband, e-mail that can also carry attachments, Nokia Xpress audio messaging, EMEA Music Player, stereo FM radio with Visual Radio, Push-to-Talk (PTT), Audio Flash Player. The camera is still a 1.3 MP, though.

Nokia 6131 is the younger brother of Nokia 6136. It was also announced at the same time as the bigger brother. The main difference is that the Nokia 6131 does not support UMA. Another new model that was launched during the event was the Nokia 6070 was a lower end device. A triband cellphone, it came with a VGA camera that can also capture video, support for MMS and Nokia Xpress audio messaging, PTT and MP3 ringtones. The Finnish company promised that the three models would be available in Q2 of this year.

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