Kineto makes the gear, but we talked about the process: Kineto Wireless has been one of the drivers behind industry acceptance of UMA, a standard for cellular and Wi-Fi voice convergence in which a single handset will roam as seamlessly among both wireless network types as a cell phone can already roam from tower to tower. In this podcast, we discuss how UMA works, what the potential is, whether hotspots are important to it, where the money can be saved, and when it's coming to market.

I see UMA as a potential win-win. Consumers may see huge savings and improved call quality on cellular plans by offloading minutes to a Wi-Fi network. Carriers will see increased overall use but less reliance on their networks, making it cheaper for them to push out those increased minutes. The potential for improved call quality--coupling 802.11e for voice priority on a handset with that capability on a Wi-Fi gateway--is just icing on the cake. [31 min., 15 MB, MP3]

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