Ericsson and Telenor have begun a joint project in Norway to evaluate and test the practical and commercial aspects of integrating Wireless LAN and UMTS as complementary radio access technologies. Seamlessly accessing WLAN in local areas will provide UMTS users with added capacity as they enter crowded hotspots such as airports or conference areas.
The project, dubbed H2U, will focus on the technical and commercial aspects of connecting a HiperLAN2 network to the surrounding UMTS network with seamless mobility between the two. A merger of the two platforms combines the merits of both access technologies; UMTS for most environments and applications in wide area coverage and the greater bandwidth of HiperLAN2 for crowded hotspots.
"A mobile operator will benefit significantly by having a WLAN-type platform added to the UMTS core network," said Ingvild Myhre, Managing Director at Telenor Mobil. "Combining the services of UMTS and the services of H2 will give the operator a service portfolio that is more valuable than either of the two individual sets alone."
Among the early users to benefit from seamless, combined UMTS-WLAN capability will be those business users who have as a high priority the support of their "nomadic working" needs. They will be able to take maximum advantage of the higher bandwidth of WLAN in very crowded local environments to most effectively reach their office applications.
"WLAN in combination with UMTS is a most interesting avenue of development in mobile communications," said Torbjörn Nilsson, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Strategic Business Development at Ericsson. "This cooperative project will advance the utilization of the synergies between WCDMA and HiperLAN2, with the ultimate result of a greater variety of services for the UMTS user."
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