'No Indian operator has volunteered for testing for specification'

Can you give a background of Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)?

OMA is an international non-profit organization concentrated on doing market
driven interoperable specifications. It was formed in 2002 by players from
content and IT, and also operators. We have close to 400 members from all
regions of the world. One of the main divers of creating this organization is
putting everybody's requirement on the table and to consolidate smaller
industry initiatives through OMA. One of the founding principles is that it is
network agnostic.

Who are the Indian members of OMA?

ACL Wireless, Bharti Telesoft, Flextronics Software Systems, Jataayu
Software, Sasken and Wipro are the Indian companies who have shown interest in
OMA.

Is there any timeline for OMA objectives?

It varies on the complexities of specification. It can take from 9 to 12
months. It is the testing phase that makes OMA unique. Once the candidate phase
is over, it enters the testing phase. Vendors host the testing and we ensure the
quality and after we have done several cycles of tests, the amount of bugs and
ambiguities start to go lower and then only we consider as a solid
specification.

Have you done any testing on any specification in India?

 We have not yet done any testing in India because no operator
has volunteered to do so. Before we decide a location for testing, we talk to
members who try to find an operator who is willing to host the network we need
for testing. There is a lot of volunteer effort going on to make this all
happen. We don't consciously drive the test locations. It is a significant
investment for the operators. Some operators even offer their live networks.

Give an overview of the newly announced OMA PoC 1.0
Enabler Release?

We launched this specification in June last, and since than we have been
testing it heavily. We are hoping to see mass-market penetration. It does not
matter on which operator network you are, you can still use the service.

Sudesh Prasad

sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in