UMA and WiMAX: emerging disruptions

SUMMARY

The telecoms landscape is awash with an ever-emerging number of technologies. Many of them do not make a significant commercial impact, as they remain proprietary to selected vendors/operators, thus limiting interoperability and slowing deployment amid operators fear of being locked in with a particular vendor. Only when technologies are standardised, do their potential impact grow in importance. Here we outline two emerging standards that have the greatest potential to cause disruption in the current telecoms landscape – UMA and WiMAX.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Key messages

• UMA
• WiMAX

UMA: enabling seamless FMC

• The technology
• Implications of UMA

WiMAX (802.16x)

• Technology
• WiMAX as a disruption to fixed telco activities