Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) is a fixed/mobile convergence (F/MC) technology that lets carriers control calls made with dual-mode handsets. Specifically, a carrier like T-Mobile can sell a phone with GSM and Wi-Fi support inside, and the phone can make a call on either kind of network.

This has limited UMA thus far to use by consumers. The wireless LANs in a big business — which could benefit from the calls being made on the WLAN — couldn’t really support it due to the hand-off issues as mobile users move from one access point to another. The time it takes is usually just enough that the phone would de-associate and try to connect to the cellular network, then have to re-associate with the next nearest AP.

Enter Extricom. The company sells 8 and 24-port WLAN switches and made claims to Kineto — one of the developers and biggest cheerleaders of the UMA technology — that it could deliver UMA to the enterprise.

Kineto didn’t believe it.

That opinion apparently changed when Extricom gave a live demo in Kineto’s offices. It connected three access points to an Extricom switch, made a call with a UMA phone, and then one-by-one unplugged the APs. Using the visual interface for the switch everyone could see the connection jump from one radio/AP to another, because the phone saw them all as being the same.

Click here for the full story at Wi-Fi Planet.