Telecom's IMS discourse
The IP multimedia subsystem is an IP-based architectural concept, championed in the wireless world by the 3GPP standards group but rapidly gaining the support of the rest of the telecom industry as the path for the evolution of network technology and service delivery. Using IP components and session initiation protocol technology, network planners can create infrastructure models that make service delivery network-agnostic, allowing for open service creation and seamless mobility across network domains. The 3GPP standards, implemented in the group's two most recent releases, lay out interface specifications and leave the rest of the job up to the industry at large.
“Network convergence is something that is foremost in network planners' minds right now. They are trying to buy equipment that fits into an IMS design, even if they are not exactly buying IMS equipment. The 3GPP and the Metro Ethernet Forum and other industry groups are all talking about the same thing using different words. They're all talking about simpler services.”
— Mark Labbe, chief technology officer, Critical Telecom
“IMS is a long-term reference architecture. It is not a two-year situation. Every service provider's implementation will be a little bit different, somewhat based on capital. They'll be looking at what services they most need to deliver on IMS, and in what time frame and what platforms they most need to enable. It's important for them to be able to leverage their existing assets in building a long-term migration plan. I think we'll see commercial implementation of IMS begin in 2005.”
— Cindy Christy, president, Lucent Technologies' Network Solutions Group.
“The challenge is how you migrate to IMS. Today, wireless carriers have data subscriber databases that connect with a home location register. How do you migrate customers to a host subscriber system [a key component in an IMS architecture]? Your choices are to migrate all live customers, which is not a trivial exercise, or you could just add new customers to the HSS, but then you are maintaining two live systems.
— Rob Prudhomme, wireless practice lead, inCode Telecom
“We're definitely planning consumer and enterprise trials of IMS-based services, but we see more of a play for the convergence aspect on the consumer side. We think it's something that is directly complementary to the strategies of our parent companies [SBC and BellSouth].”
— Kelly Williams, executive director of core strategies, Cingular Wireless
“There are two key events to watch for in the next year regarding IMS and network convergence. One is the acceptance of Motorola's dual-mode phone, which they said they only did because the enterprise wanted a dual-mode capability, and the other is the progress of BT's Bluephone project. People will look to these two events to see how important the hand-off capability is and what the real demand is for that type of convergence.”
— inCode's Prudhomme
