Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) technology is on its way to becoming an official 3G standard, according to an Unstrung report. The 3GPP’s GERAN working group approved the change request that adds support for 3G core network interfaces to the UMA specification at a meeting in Vancouver, Canada, last month. The next and final step towards 3GPP acceptance, according to Unstrung, will be discussed at the working group’s February meeting. As a result, UMA is likely to become an approved 3G standard during the first quarter of next year.

Approval of the standard as a 3G technology is expected to pave the way for availability of 3G/WiFi services as well as for femtocell integration into mobile core networks. “This is the first bit of clear evidence that there is life after 2G for UMA,” Keith Mumford, Director of Product Marketing EMEA at Kineto Wireless, told Unstrung. Mumford told the publication that the first UMA-based dualmode 3G/WiFi phones are likely to appear in the third quarter of 2008. Operators that have launched 2G/WiFi dualmode services include BT, Orange France, T-Mobile USA, Telecom Italia and TeliaSonera.