THE NEXT broad industry demonstration of IMS is the IMS Forum's IMS Plugfest for Applications and Services, which will be held between Jan. 15-19, 2007, at the University of New Hampshire's Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL — which also was one of the lab locations for GMI 2006).

In announcing the plugfest last month, IMS Forum Chairman Michael Khalilian said the January event will be the first in a series of IMS Plugfests that will assemble service providers and IMS vendors. Companies that already have committed to participate in the first plugfest include Empirix, Genband, GlobalTouch Telecom, Sonus, Tekelec and Trendium.

“IMS is fundamental to next-generation IP services deployment, as it allows the realization of true fixed-wireless convergence,” Khalilian said. “However, IMS adoption and development is still in its nascent stages. The IMS Forum Plugfest represents the ideal setting in which to clarify the ambiguity surrounding this emerging standard.”

Ronald Gruia, senior telecom analyst for Frost & Sullivan, also said in the IMS Forum statement announcing the plugfest, “With IMS poised to serve as a primary catalyst for telecommunications growth over the next five years, there is a definite need for applications and service certification and interoperability, a much under-emphasized aspect of telecommunications.” Frost & Sullivan has done research suggesting that the IMS market will grow from $2.5 billion last year to $12.6 billion by 2012.

The IMS Forum and the MSF, both of which built their interoperability events on top of large reference documents addressing details of the IMS framework, are just two of the trade groups helping to contribute information from broader demonstrations to the IMS pantheon Another is MobileIGNITE (IGNITE stands for Integrated Go-to-Market Network IP Telephony Experience). The group has recently completed its first functional specification and eventually will sponsor some kind of certification testing program, according to MobileIGNITE Chairman Sanjay Jhawar. “We have yet to decide if we want to create a separate test environment,” he said. “It will be another 12 months before we have an agreement on how that will proceed. A lot of other groups are doing test beds, so maybe we will work with them in some way. That pragmatic thing to do is not duplicate what somebody else already is doing.”