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Parked outside the convention center in Las Vegas, Nevada was a colorful eighteen wheeler that Nokia calls its Mobile Solutions Experience Center. It is used to test and demonstrate 2G and 3G services.

Eric Estroff, the company’s Director of Marketing, Networking, North America told a small assembly of journalists, analysts and bloggers, the vehicle/technology evangelist tool takes to the road - often to the chagrin of the people who man it - 40 plus weeks a year to spread the Finnish phone giant’s message of seamless mobility.

Nokia gathered the group together - the first of two half hour sittings - to give a live UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) demonstration; after a long day at CTIA Wireless 2006. UMA is an emerging dual-mode style fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) standard that allows GSM carriers to seamlessly handoff calls and data connections between cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

The industry is expecting numerous advantages with this technology. For example, say you’re on your mobile phone when you pull into the driveway at home. Walk into your house and the call is automatically switched to an IP network over Wi-Fi instantaneously, without disruption.

The inside of Nokia’s truck was dark with lots of screens and blinking lights. Estroff made Nokia’s pitch for UMA, saying the company was “really in the fixed to mobile space,” emphasizing the company’s investment not just in the devices people use to communicate but the technologies that connect them as well.

Nokia Applications Administrator Wojtek Felendzer took us through the demonstration.

First he showed us a screen that would indicate when a phone would make the leap from a GSM to a Wi-Fi connection and back again. Then he pulled out two dual-mode handsets: a Symbian, S60-based N80 to represent the high-end market segment and a more mass market 6136. Both phones are registered with the UMA.

Felendzer handed me one of the phones with both connected to each other through a GSM call. He spoke. I said I heard him. People laughed. And the phone in his hand made the switchover from a GSM to Wi-Fi as he walked from one side of the truck to the other.

In the controlled environment of the Mobile Solutions Experience Center, the handover from the cellular network to the Wi-Fi network was in fact seamless. Without my noticing any change in connection quality. It worked fine as he made his way back to GSM, so we were on the same type of wireless network once again, as well.

Fixed/mobile convergence won’t be as easy as walking into your local Starbucks with your dual-mode phone and making the handover from a cellular to Wi-Fi, however. The carriers want tight control over the technology. And, it appears, they’ll even determine the Wi-Fi routers required in the home even.

Also, at least initially, UMA is a WEP-enabled solution, which basically means it requires a password to get on the 802.11 network. Hot spots would have to have agreements with your carrier for it to work seamlessly outside the home or office. Otherwise, you’d need WEP passwords entered already for every access point that you frequent, which isn’t very convenient.

This is also why Fixed/mobile convergence is so attractive to operators with heavy investments in hot spots already, such as T-Mobile and Orange. It simply becomes another part of their wireless plan. Would you like dual mode with your new cellular-voice service? How about a single bill for all your communications needs?

It gives the carriers (and don’t think for a second cable and wireline operators are sitting idly by watching all this happen) into places where in-home operators (and even VoIP vendors like Skype) dominate; or where wireless coverage has been spotty in the past.

Dual mode and its underpinnings aren’t just about bringing better wireless service to cell phones and smartphones and improving usability through simplicity – one of the most important themes of the show.

(Where, for example, Samsung attempted to answer why consumers aren’t doing much with their camera phones by showing off models that actually looked and acted like real digital cameras; content-enablers like Action Engine demonstrated its new MSNBC application that emphasized simplicity and advertising that didn’t annoy users; Visto talked about the concept of a unified mobile inbox for all mobile messages (MMS, IM, SMS, e-mail); or Authentec demonstrated how a biometric solution in a phone (that didn’t care how dirty your fingers were, because it read the layer of skin underneath your seventh dead one) could address multiple security issues – from a lost handset to payments to banking to remembering passwords to entering pins on keypads and keyboards.)

It is also about improving current content offerings – MMS, streaming video, and downloads, for example, and creating new services and increasing revenue opportunities for all the providers

IMS
In the truck, Nokia also demonstrated an IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) video share application, which is currently undergoing trials with North American carriers. IMS is a technology that aims to unify various backend systems – wireless, wired, cable – to better integrate services and make them less costly and more efficient.

Although the video sharing solution Nokia showed us was done over 3G, it could also be performed over any type of IP network, including Wi-Fi.

The demo involved two mobile handsets – one taking video and the other on the receiving end. At the same time, the two people holding them were able maintain a regular two-way voice conversation.

During the demonstration Nokia’s Estroff emphasized how video share could be fun, but there were other applications for it as well. He used the example of a father confirming his daughter’s whereabouts at the mall, where she said she was, even though the environment over the phone didn’t sound that way.

The video traveled at 128 kbps, featured 19x zoom and displayed at 12 frames per second (fps), which worked fine; although it could do 30 fps. Nokia emphasized, however, that you don’t want to go too high because you’re limited by the capabilities of the receiving handset.

Also, an application like this isn’t just limited to video, you could do audio as well or combine the two. And a cell phone can video share just as easily to a PC.

When a reporter said, “Cool app, but how many people are going to use it,” Nokia Estroff talked about how video sharing was something he’d become passionate about.

He explained how video sharing could open up a whole new market segment in the deaf. While the hearing impaired have long used SMS and other forms of text messaging to communicate via mobile handsets, video sharing would enable them, for the first time, to hold real phone calls; taking turns signing, I presume.

Video sharing could also be a platform for sharing family moments: a father watching his son play baseball while away on business, grandparents seeing their grandchildren more often, etc. Or, perhaps, it would give doctors the ability to respond to emergency situations – a car accident victim (perhaps) – in real time (sometimes at great distances), so they could prescribe help right away. The applications are endless.

Certification
To ease the convergence of the Wi-Fi and cellular worlds, the CTIA and the Wi-Fi Alliance announced plans at the show to come together and partner on a certification program for dual-mode handsets; 20 of which are in the works already for this year alone.

"As more converged phones become available, and carriers announce plans to support convergence, cross-industry collaboration becomes critical to address pressing technological challenges," said Wi-Fi Alliance managing director Frank Hanzlik. "We are pleased to partner with CTIA, who has a proven track record developing test programs that have been embraced by mobile carriers."

The initial focus of this cooperation will be on Radio Frequency (RF) performance mapping in a mixed network environment. Future work will explore other technology challenges of convergence, such as handover between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, cross-radio signal sensitivity and battery life.

Robert Mesirow, vice president of operations for CTIA explained, "The Wi-Fi Alliance has significant expertise in unlicensed wireless technology and developing certification programs that address end user expectations. By combining our knowledge bases we can ensure that carriers and subscribers alike have the best possible experience with converged devices."

ABI research projects sales for dual-mode phones to grow from basically non existent – in a few offices and warehouses – to about 100 million in 2009.

That’s big business indeed.