Kineto Wireless | Technology | Ask the Experts

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Patrick Tao
Vice President, Technology

Patrick Tao, Kineto's vice president of technology, leads the company's efforts in continued innovations and applications of UMA/GAN technology and manages technology relationships with mobile network operators and network equipment providers. Mr. Tao is also responsible for driving GAN evolution standards through the 3GPP standards body. view full bio

UMA/GAN and 3G/UMTS

You sometimes hear that UMA/GAN is a 2G technology and doesn't support 3G/UMTS handsets and services. Is this correct?

No, that is not correct. The 3GPP UMA/GAN standard was designed from the beginning to support dual-mode 3G handsets as well as 2G handsets. In addition, as with 2G handset support, the 3GPP GAN standard supports the handover of active voice calls and mobile data/IMS services between Wi-Fi and 3G/UMTS networks. And to be very clear, any 3G circuit, packet or IMS-based service an operator delivers over its macro 3G/UMTS network can also be delivered over UMA.

Wi-Fi technology is a perfect complement to a 3G service offer. Characterized by high-data rates and limited by in-door coverage issues, 3G service plans can benefit with UMA because of the high broadband data rates, as well as the improved coverage offered by Wi-Fi indoors.
At the start of 2009, there were five commercially available 3G/UMA handsets, with many more expected throughout the year.

So, UMA supports 3G handsets and services. But will the UMA/GAN standard be adding support for the 3G Iu interfaces?
While not required in order to support 3G handsets and services, support for the 3G Iu core network interfaces was added to the 3GPP GAN standard in November, 2007. The Iu interface enables operators to begin leveraging the more efficient Iu-cs and Iu-ps interfaces (versus A and Gb interfaces) as well as their 3G infrastructure in the deployment of dual-mode handsets services.