Dean Bubley: Cisco and UMA

Dean Bubley writes at Disruptive Wireless about "Cisco's apparent embracing of UMA/3GPP GAN technology." Bubley's thought "it's a relatively straightforward announcement about network security. A number of other network security infrastructure vendors such as ReefPoint, Stoke and apparently Lucent have already recognised that UMA deployments have significant impacts in terms of scaling up authentications, VPN tunnel termination and so forth in the mobile operator's network."

He thinks that "given the likelihood of some US operators introducing UMA services (Cingular & T-Mobile seem almost certain candidates), it is unsurprising that one of the world's largest network security vendors - and one which is making a big push into carriers - almost has to have a solution." However he concludes with:

Whether or not Cisco actually has invested a huge amount in this, or expects to sell many UMA Gateways, is of course another matter. My understanding is that entry to the UMA club (either for operators or vendors) is not desperately expensive. But that still doesn't alter my conclusion that UMA's just not going to work commercially, or in terms of overall user experience.