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Firmware Update

FOTA stands for “firmware update over-the-air.” It’s a technology that enables remote updates and upgrades on an S60 device’s firmware after manufacture. FOTA has been standardized in Open Mobile Alliance under the name Firmware Update Management Object (FUMO) V1.0. The full specification is available at the Open Mobile Alliance website ».

S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 provides a framework for reliable, optimized, and cost-efficient firmware update delivery and installation. It consists of a standards-based FOTA download client, which allows S60 licensees to implement full end-to-end FOTA solutions. The S60 FOTA client also supports all best-of-breed third-party difference/compression technologies.

FOTA was not designed to update a device’s entire firmware; rather, FOTA will deliver fixes and minor functional enhancements as update packages. The update package is downloaded to the S60 device and then the S60 device updates itself. The update package itself is simply a difference file between two firmware versions. Firmware is defined as the part of the terminal software stored in the read-only memory. It consists of the terminal hardware interface software, operating system, and native S60 applications like the phonebook and calendar. The update package could be delivered over-the-air over GPRS, 3G, or WLAN (WiFi).

FOTA technology supports both pull and push updates, so the owner of an S60 device can initiate the update, or an operator can initiate push to update the terminal. In both cases, as a security feature, the device owner has to accept the update.

Firmware Update-Over-the-Internet (OTI)

In addition to FOTA, S60 licensees may implement other mechanisms for firmware update. For instance, Nokia is already working with updates over-the-Internet. In this case, a PC with an Internet connection also connects, via USB cable, to an S60 device. In the OTI solution the whole software image is first downloaded to the PC and then to the handheld device.

Nokia as a S60 licensee already offers Firmware Update-Over-the-Internet » for selected S60 phones.

Why is Mobile Device Management important?

To fully realize the potential revenue of today’s mobile services, operators must make it easy for subscribers to adapt to and use new services.

These revenue-generating services can only be accessed when the phones are configured with the correct settings, and many users are unwilling or unable to spend the time needed to configure their phones themselves.

This tends to result in low usage rates for new and advanced services like Internet browsing », multimedia messaging, push email », instant messaging », voice over IP (VoIP), push-to-talk » (PoC), remote calendar synchronization », and others.

Device Management also provides lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) through more efficient device management, improved user experience, greater device consistency, and reduced downtime of devices.