UMA Today Magazine: Beyond Voice Page 19

UMA Today: Set the scene for us a little. Can you
tell us about Orange's success to date with Unik?

Lauren Town: We're quite pleased with the success

of Unik. In France, where we first launched the service,
we've sold more than a million UMA-enabled handsets.
Customer satisfaction for Wi-Fi-based services is very
high, with increased ARPU for subscribers using the
Unik service. We're delivering our UMA service in other
countries Orange serves as well, so that more of our
customer base can benefit.

UMA Today: Does Orange also have an
interest in femtocell strategies?

Lauren Town: France Telecom/Orange has launched

an RFP process for femtocells for the enterprise market.
We haven't yet launched any tests or trials for femtocells
in the consumer market.

UMA Today: It's been well reported that

Orange has had quite a bit of success with Unik.
It would seem you have what you need. Are
you investigating femtocells as an addition in the
consumer market?

Town: In the countries where we've launched UMA [Ed

note: France, Spain, UK, Poland], we don't really see an
opportunity for femtocell in addition. There may be other
markets where femtocells could be an opportunity, but as
yet, we haven't advanced on the femtocell opportunity.

UMA Today: Does that mean that UMA achieves
what you want for that customer offering?

Town: Yes, it does. And what's interesting is a lot of

the discussion you hear in the industry on the potential
femtocell opportunity and customer value proposition
is actually identical to what we see as the customer value
proposition for UMA. From the customer point of view, I
don't see any difference between the two technologies.

UMA Today: What about on the handset
side? Are there enough options for Unik
subscribers? Femtocell proponents stress the
fact that femtos work with regular handsets, so
a dual-mode is not required.

Town: When we first launched, it's true that there were

very few UMA handsets. But we've been working very closely

with the handset manufacturers, helping to drive them to
produce more. And towards the end of this year, we'll have
more than 20 handsets supporting Unik. So the handset
range has expanded considerably. And we see in the future,
as more and more handsets, particularly 3G handsets, are
Wi-Fi enabled, it'll be much easier for handset vendors to
provide UMA handsets.

UMA Today: You mentioned femtocells
possibly going where you don't have UMA
offering. Why not just stick with UMA?

Town: Our strategy is to continue developing UMA,

as it is a proven and reliable technology, which is not yet
the case for femtocells. There may be certain enterprise
markets where we would investigate the opportunity
for a femtocell solution. It depends very much on local
market conditions and the assets that our operators have
in various markets. With the increasing adoption of Wi-
Fi within the home however, we believe that UMA has a
bright future.

UMA Today: What's your outlook on UMA,
femtocells and other fixed-mobile convergence
strategies going forward?

Town: We are developing many new strategies to get

us closer to a connected home environment. We have a
rich set of products for our subscriber base, and it's clear
that the LiveBox and UMA-based dual-mode phones will
be at the center. What I see as key to driving the adoption
of connected home services is ease of use. With UMA,
we have several years of experience in providing the best
possible user experience for our customers.

FALL 2008

UMA TODAY

With the increasing

adoption of Wi-Fi

within the home... We

believe that UMA has a

bright future.

Lauren Town, program director
for Unik, Orange/France