HP has spent the last year shoring up and talking about its next-generation service provider solutions and this week announced three operator contracts for a range of functionality including service delivery, fault management, service quality management and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) testing.

South Korea's SK Telecom (SKT), Vodafone Netherlands and TeliaSonera have recently expanded or entered into new contracts with HP's service provider business unit.

SKT has deployed the HP Mobile E-services Server, a key component of the HP Service Delivery Platform, to bring new multimedia services to its 18.8 million subscribers. The HP solution is now a core element in SKT's new unified framework, called the Next Generation Convergence Platform. It is a modular, integrated collection of standards-based software and tools, partner solutions, carrier-grade hardware, and consulting and integration services. The SDP also provides an application interface for developers, enterprises and content providers and is built on commercial Web services technologies, such as SOAP, UDDI and WSDL.

The SDP also allows operators to share network and management resources in order to minimize duplication and simplify the management of 3G network elements.

SKT is not HP's first sale of its SDP. Telefonica Movil of Spain and a Taiwanese operator also have deployed it.

The SDP helps operators manage a broad portfolio of internal or third-party services and integrate them into the network while simultaneously protecting the integrity of that network underneath," said Joy King, director of HP's Network and Service Provider Business Unit.

Vodafone Netherlands said it would use a MobiXtar transcoding solution from Israel-based MobiXell in conjunction with HP as lead integrator to enhance multimedia messages for subscribers.

"There can be difficulties rendering content properly on different kinds of devices," King said. "So in order to get full uptake on MMS, Vodafone wanted to make sure that problem went away."

TeliaSonera deployed the HP OpenView product suite to manage its 3G network elements. The operator will use the OpenView TeMip technology, an addition from the $25 billion Compaq acquisition in 2002, for fault management, and the HP Service Quality Manager for automating the management and documentation of service-level agreements.

King said TeliaSonera expects to have to manage three times the number of faults and service issues daily in its 3G network. She also said HP was able to deploy the entire system in six weeks. TeliaSonera was able to triple its capacity to identify and correct network alarms.

HP also announced a mobile device management solution and the opening of three testing and trial environments for IMS it calls IMS experience centers. The centers are located in Grenoble, France; Montreal; and Richardson, Texas. Using HP OpenCall, HP OpenView and HP server platforms, the centers will provide an environment for third-party vendors to test, integrate, pilot and trial IMS solutions.

"We're trying to create a collaborative environment because to make IMS work, a lot of different pieces of the industry will have to work together," King said.

The device management solution, called Mobile Device Manager, will manage device software upgrades, personalization and policies for enterprises over the air. The MDM incorporates applications from Gemplus, InnoPath and mFormation.