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UMA: Routing your BlackBerry calls over Wi-Fi

Posted on 23 Aug 2010 at 13:57

Paul Ockenden connects a BlackBerry to Orange's Unlicensed Mobile Access service

In my own testing UMA has worked well. I’ve used it at home (where right now I have two wireless networks, one running off a DrayTek 2820Vn, the other off a Netgear ProSafe DGFV338) and also out and about at various places with free public Wi-Fi access.

I’ve had no problems at all and have found calls over UMA/Wi-Fi to be just as clear as those made over the mobile network. In fact, in areas with poor mobile coverage the UMA calls have been significantly better. I also tested call hand-off from Wi-Fi back to the mobile network, by starting a call over UMA then yanking the power cable from my wireless router.

There was a very short period of silence – a fraction of a second, barely noticeable – and then the call continued as normal, which is very impressive and only possible because UMA is so deeply integrated into the carrier’s network infrastructure.

Reader's results

Although Orange’s UMA service works like a dream for me, other readers haven’t reported the same success. Typical is an email from Chris Upton in which he says: “I was very interested to read your column on UMA access, as I was trying to set this up myself only last week. I have a BlackBerry Curve 8900, which supports UMA and indeed was picking up UMA signals in Vietnam when I was on holiday there over Easter. My router is PlusNet standard issue Thomson Speedtouch TG585 v7 and my ISP is PlusNet.

"My BlackBerry connects to the router through its normal Wi-Fi connection very satisfactorily, but doesn’t show UMA on the display. Orange says the router may not support UMA (it says its own Livebox, the BT HomeHub and some Netgears are the only ones the company knows that support UMA). I spoke to PlusNet, which claims never to have heard of UMA and passed me on to Thomson.

"Thomson also claims never to have heard of UMA and didn’t sound very interested. There seem to be mixed reviews of the effectiveness of UMA on various forums on the net. Some are quite disparaging, saying it isn’t reliable and is old technology that BT Fusion used but has now dropped. PC Pro’s excellent review of routers in issue 187 didn’t mention UMA – does this mean it’s supported by all these routers, or not considered important?”

UMA shouldn’t need any special magic in the router at all

Well Chris, UMA shouldn’t need any special magic in the router at all – any standard Wi-Fi modem, router, or access point should work just fine.

The only enhancement some might offer is to prioritise UMA traffic, so that you get better streaming performance on a heavily loaded network. As long as the BlackBerry connects to the wireless infrastructure properly, UMA should work.

And despite what you might read on some forums, there’s no need to mess around with port forwarding and stuff like that: as long as your router’s firewall isn’t blocking outbound ports (which it shouldn’t) then everything should just work.

Having trouble?

If you’re struggling with either Wi-Fi or UMA, it’s worth taking a look at the Wi-Fi diagnostics page. It takes a little digging but you’ll find it by going to Options | Wi-Fi then clicking the menu key and selecting Wi-Fi Tools | Wi-Fi Diagnostics.

This is a useful screen that updates dynamically, so there’s no need to keep popping in and out to refresh it. In the Wi-Fi section, you’re looking for a sensible local IP address and a status of “Network acquired”, and further down the page you need to see green ticks beside the three items under “BlackBerry Infrastructure”.

If yours is a corporate BlackBerry running on a BES, you’ll also see a section called “Enterprise” – and again, ideally you want to see green ticks, although because of the way BlackBerry works this isn’t essential; traffic can still route via the NOC and back to your BES.

Finally, you’ll see a section called “UMA” and if all is working properly you’ll see green ticks for “UMA Wi-Fi Available” and “Connection”, and a status of “UMA Connection successful”.

If your Wi-Fi Diagnostics screen shows anything else, it’s worth giving Orange customer services a call.

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