3G. Wireless Communication Solutions

Samsung’s UMA mobile phone, which is considered the first of its kind in the world. The leading cell phone company has kicked up to hit the Italian market with this newest phone.

Based on fixed-mobile convergence standard, the UMA mobile phone enables handsets to switch from using a cell network to VoIP over Wi-Fi without users intervention.

The Samsung SGH-P200 VoIP phone carries GSM, GPRS, EDGE and 802.11 b/g. Its weight is 95gram with 80MB of flash onboard. It has a 1.3 mega pixel camera and can play back MP3 and AAC.

Mobile operators the world over fleece their customers for making roaming calls and for making international calls. However, all this could soon change. Using popular services such as Skype, users can make international calls and talk for unlimited lengths of time, for a flat monthly fee of around $20 or less.

This has started in Europe where Italian operator 3 Italia, has introduced a VOIP service in February this year. For around 5 cents per hour – a flat monthly fee of around $18 - subscribers can call fixed-line phones in Japan, South Korea, Australia and most of Western Europe, and both fixed and mobile numbers in the United States, China, Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Since it needs a broadband Internet connection, VOIP works well only on mobile phones that use high-speed third-generation networks, making the technology particularly attractive to 3 Italia, which does not have a second-generation network. But mobile VOIP is also potentially appealing to the bigger mobile phone companies that, in addition to underused 3G networks, have older networks clogged with traffic.

For several years, companies like Skype have been using VOIP to offer free calls between computers, and in the process they have stolen traffic from traditional fixed-line phone companies. In the hands of mobile phone service providers, the same technology raises the stakes. According to a report by the Boston-based consultancy Pyramid Research, $200 billion of fixed-line phone traffic could move to mobile networks in the coming years.

Read more: Trends of VoIP via Cellphones