UMA Today Magazine: UMA Jumpstarts Femtocells Page 23

Consumers are also truly taking advantage of the

benefits of Unik. Orange reports that Unik subscribers
generate 25% more traffic from home. Specifically,
customers are making 3 times more calls per month from
home than before. Yet this increase in mobile minutes
of use has resulted in almost no increase in macro radio
access network usage. The traffic is backhauled over the
Wi-Fi access network, not the GSM radio network.

FT/Orange is also seeing subscribers take advantage of

the seamless handover capability of Unik, with 15-20%
of calls resulting in a handover from one network to the
other. Subscribers appreciate the ability to start a call on
Wi-Fi and walk out the door, or vice versa.

While positioned as a consumer service offer, Orange

has noted that 25% of Unik subscribers connect to 2 or
more LiveBoxes. This implies that small businesses are
leveraging the LiveBox in the home and office to maximize
the advantages of the Unik offer.

nexT For Unik

Clearly top of the list for Orange

is to increase the number of devices available with the
Unik offer. Recently, Orange announced availability
of the new UMA-enabled dual-mode Blackberry 8820.
Rumors abound that a dual-mode UMA-enabled version
of Nokia's very popular 6300, known as the 6301, will arrive
imminently.

Meanwhile, Samsung seems to have a hit with the T409

device. One analyst quotes that the "...battery life of the
Samsung [T409] handset is absolutely stellar..." Samsung
will undoubtedly capitalize on this success with a family of
UMA-enabled devices.

For its part, Orange has continued to innovate around the

Unik service. Almost immediately after launch, Orange
announced a flat-rate calling plan for fixed numbers across
Europe when connected via Wi-Fi. In June 2007, Orange
made the Unik service available through its 30,000 hotspot
network locations across France. There are plans to make
the service available in more locations and through more
access networks.

whY UMA?

Consider this: Why did Orange select

UMA as the basis for such a critical and fundamental
service offer? France Telecom continues to be a long-time
proponent of IMS as the basis for a network convergence
strategy. Because of this, many considered SIP and IMS
as a natural choice for Orange/France Telecom's new
convergence service.

Needless to say, Orange conducted an extensive evalu-

ation process comparing UMA technology with SIP/IMS
technology based on the nearly completed Voice Call Con-
tinuity (VCC) specification.

Through it all, UMA proved to be the most pragmatic

and mature approach for seamless service delivery.
UMA was closely aligned with Orange's mobile network
migration and offered a low impact, cost-effective method
for delivering a dual-mode service. But perhaps most
interesting, UMA natively supports SIP and IMS. In the
end, Orange didn't have to choose between SIP/IMS or
UMA, as SIP/IMS-based applications run over the packet
data services link of UMA today.

With that, the long-term strategy fell into place. UMA

is the access technology of choice for extending mobile
voice and data services over IP, including all new SIP/IMS
applications.

ConClUsion

As Orange often says: "UMA is here

to stay." The operator has been very active in developing
the UMA vendor ecosystem, pushing platform and device
manufacturers to develop a wide range of UMA-enabled
handsets. The result is a pipeline of devices from brands
that consumers know and trust.

Consumers are sending Orange a clear message about

UMA: handover works, voice quality is better than ex-
pected and it really is as simple as GSM. Unik continues
to achieve its goal of simplifying consumer's lives.

FALL 2007

UMA TodAY

Orange FMC Evaluation:

· Handset availability
· Service transparency
· Handover reliability
· Location-based /

emergency services

· Subscriber access management

and control

· Network integration impact
· Scalability
· Costs