TIM drops UMA

Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) has abandoned unlicensed mobile access (UMA) technology for its cellular/Wi-Fi crossover product Unica in favour of a SIP-based system. Unica was launched earlier this year, allowing TIM’s mobile customers to use a single handset to make fixed line calls via a Wi-Fi network when at home and mobile calls via GSM networks when outside the home. Unstrung says the company moved away from the UMA standard because of a lack of handsets and because of regulatory difficulties. The one drawback of the new SIP-based system is that it does not allow for handover between the Wi-Fi and cellular networks, so a user must redial if on a call when moving between the home network and the wider GSM network.