'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