Well, there are now two UMA trials in the USA that I know about.
T-Mobile has been testing a service in Seattle WA that they plan to go national later this summer with phones by Samsung. And now, according to C|Net, Cincinnati Bell Wireless has taken the plunge with their own offering.
Cinci-bell is offering the service call CB Home Run on the Nokia 6086 handset. Works on both WiFi and GSM networks.
The key issues with UMA are that it's about GSM over WiFi and not VoIP. The carrier knows every minute you spend on either network. It may not matter if there's a handoff to the other network at all.
This announcement is nearly a year behind France Telecom's Unik service launch in the UK. I've always thought that the USA market was 2 years behind Europe. 😉
I have blogged in the past about the shortcomings of UMA for enterprise applications. As I think about my own small business, this phone may not be all that much better than the arrangement I already have. Mobile for inbound calling and Skype in Mac over WiFi for outbound. Seems to work real well.
