BARCELONA, Spain -- From the Nokia 3GSM press conference this morning:
Chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila said that this year the company expects to sell about 40 million 3G handsets, 80 million devices with music players and more than 150 million devices with FM radio.
One of those devices will be the Nokia 6136, which was also announced today. The device uses -- yes another abbreviation -- UMA technology, which stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access. That means that phone calls will be able to switch from the cellular network to Wi-Fi networks without a user noticing.
This is important because cellphones sometimes don't work well indoors and, in that situation, a user can switch over to Wi-Fi, either through a personal home network or at a public hotspot, to receive better coverage.
The solution is something that Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA is likely to be interested in. It launched two devices today, the SDA and the MDA, with Wi-Fi capabilities.