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In an effort to upgrade its network, du announced on Tuesday it would install IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) technology provided by Nokia (News - Alert).

Du is a brand name for Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), a telecom based in Dubai that offers IPTV, fixed and mobile phone service and broadband throughout the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to its website, EITC has about half the mobile market share in the UAE with 6.5 million customers. About 60 percent of EITC is owned by government-based investment entities in the UAE.

The new technology from Nokia is an important upgrade as it allows du’s customers to have high definition audio and video, file sharing, fixed mobile convergence (FMC) and IP-based communications. With FMC, there is no distinction between fixed and mobile telephony as far as the user is concerned. Handover between fixed and mobile networks is done transparently and calls can be transferred between land and wireless phones.

IMS seems to be making a modest comeback after many dismissed it as impractical for its complexity and being difficult to install. Virtualization from cloud technology has eliminated the problems that hardware-intensive IMS installations were plagued with and VoLTE has also helped to give IMS new life. As a result, some IT decision makers are going with IMS over unified communications.

When a country doubles in population as the UAE did from 2005 to 2013, modernizing the telecom network is a good idea, especially when that country seeks economic prosperity. The UAE had an estimated GDP of $390 billion in 2013 and ranks seventh globally in GDP per capita at $48,158.

The country has free trade zones that are tax free and allow foreign ownership, encouraging significant foreign investment in the economy. Although the global financial crisis hurt the economy in 2009, the UAE has since bounced back and expects over four percent growth in GDP this year.

While EITC made the right move by modernizing its network, some IMS skeptics will be critical of the decision by the telecom to use that technology. Without a doubt, the cloud and VoLTE have made IMS feasible, but the new IMS is not taking off in the marketplace as quickly as UC has. Hopefully for the sake of EITC and its customers, the decision to use IMS won’t leave them stuck with obsolete technology a few years from now.