3G. Wireless Communication Solutions

Nokia is pushing to popularize UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) technology in the mass market. The global mobile phone giant is putting the resourcesis to trial its first voice-over-wireless LAN system and service in Finland which will allow mobile users to make use of lower cost voice calls over the Internet.

The system, called Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), is being tested by 50 households in the city of Oulu. They are using the Nokia 6136 handset which is among the first mobile phones to support the handover of voice and data calls between a WLAN and the local GSM network.

The users will be able to roam and handover between local area networks and wide area networks using the same dual-mode handset.

The handset does not need to continuously communicate with a GSM basestation, but will also make calls through WLAN Internet networks. Which opens up the use of lower cost voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) services.

UMA technology makes it possible for users to seamlessly roam and handover between local area networks and wide area networks using the same dual-mode device. Instead of constantly communicating with a base station, UMA allows the phone to also make calls through WLAN internet networks. In turn, this will also make it easier and cheaper for operators to expand their area coverage by implementing WLAN hotspots instead of costly base stations.

More at Electronicsweekly

MINO Wireless, CA-based mobile services company, has announced a new mobile application for making international calls from Blackberry phones. Users can call any phone worldwide at very low rates.

MINO began selling its Blackberry application on Handango (www.handango.com) in May, and in the first four weeks several thousand Blackberry users have downloaded the MINO Java application, which takes only two minutes to download and install and making low-cost international calls, without dialing access numbers and PIN numbers like with calling cards.

Users can dial direct from their contact lists after they install the MINO application and pay very low international calling rates. Blackberry users who can’t download a Java application can still use MINO by pointing their WAP browsers to getmino.com.

MINO opened its service in early 2006 and has signed up over 40,000 users in more than 50 countries in a few months. “When we looked at the early adopters of our service, we found that Blackberry was the most popular device among them,” said CEO Jing Liu.

Mobile phone is the natural device for making international calls, but if users want reasonable cost, they are not likely to use their mobile phone to make international calls. Since Blackberry users already have an Internet plan for emailing, they can get the low cost and convenience of calling from PC’s and VoIP phones on their Blackberry device with MINO.

MINO Wireless was founded in 2004 and has been developing the technology to connect mobile phones to the Voice-Over-IP infrastructure for two years.

For more: Blackberry by MINO