Not more UMA for Telecom Italia but SIP standard in the UNICA service

One of the few providers using the UMA scheme to combine Wi-Fi and cellular service using dual-mode phones has ditched the standard in favour of a more open SIP-based approach, leaving BT's Fusion, and France Telecom's Unik supporting a lacklustre approach. Part-way through launching Unica, a converged phone service based on UMA (unlicensed mobile access), in which a dual-mode handset shifts between the cellular network and the subscriber's indoor Wi-Fi service, Telecom Italia switched, and launched a service which achieves the same thing through SIP. The reason is because of a lack of handsets, and barriers raised by the Italian radio regulator, according to industry site Unstrung."We launched [earlier this year] based on UMA, but we left the technology," said Enrico Roberto Polese, Senior Project Manager at Telecom Italia Lab , speaking at the Developing Converged Services conference in London.......more