OMTP - Open Mobile Terminal Platform

The OMTP draws upon the expertise of its working groups in the delivery of its recommendations. OMTP Working Groups are composed of experts from our member companies, covering four distinct areas - hardware, software, user experience and security. It is the published output from these groups – managed and delivered within a formal and transparent governance structure - that forms the core of OMTP activity.

OMTP device recommendations are intended to be specific - unambiguous enough for both specification and compliance purposes. Indeed, workable solutions and pragmatic advice is in the very DNA of the organisation; we can’t impose our recommendations on anyone, so it’s critical that they meet the needs of our members. If they do, then operators will request them and consequently, manufacturers will produce them. So while the OMTP may lead the process, it is market economics that ultimately drive the success or failure of our findings.

Since our first recommendations in the summer of 2005, the OMTP has delivered over thirty recommendation papers, focusing on three main areas.

Device Management

In this area, OMTP aims to add flexibility to operators in provisioning their services with the appropriate parameters and settings. Increased capabilities in this area will help operators provide services that work and are kept up-to-date in a consistent manner across their handsets.

In this area, OMTP has published operator recommendations for Remote Service Provisioning as well as Device Management Enablers and VoIP Settings. And as the main gateway to operator services, the SIM has come under particular scrutiny.

Usability

To improve the user experience of mobile data services across a range of handsets in an operator's handset portfolio, OMTP specifies the common building blocks that enable the delivery of consistent and seamless user experiences for mobile data services. For example, OMTP has published recommendations for Seamless Browser interaction, for customising the user experience in Customisation and Customisation Enabler and for the necessary software enablers.

In addition, as new services become available, OMTP aims to ensure the user experience is optimised, as evidenced in its work in the field of DRM and IMS

More tangible customer benefits will come in the form of OMTP’s work on device connectivity, both in terms of Analogue Wired Connectivity and Data and Charging.

Security and Trusted Environment

As handsets become more open and sophisticated, they face greater threats from malicious software and hacking. High security applications such as e-commerce and broadcast require hardware security that can withstand even the most determined embedded hacker. Defining a common hardware, software and application security infrastructure will help operators reduce the risk of attack from malicious software and the threats to user confidence and device protection. The OMTP has specified a trusted environment at the hardware level of the device to provide the underpinnings of security in the handset. A common Application Security Framework sits above this which allows varying degrees of access to features on the phone based on the trust that is given to an application. The accompanying guidelines for Certification Schemes complement the framework by harmonising the processes by which applications can be digitally signed.

Security continues to be a key focus going forward, and currently in progress is continued work in defining the Advanced Trusted Environment which builds upon the work completed on Basic Trusted Environment and also a process for Incident Handling.

A full index of all our recommendations can be found on the Publications page.

How we work

Device Management

Usability

Security and Trusted Environment

CONFERENCES & EVENTS