State of IMS Plugfest™ and Certification

We at the IMS Forum®, the industry’s only association dedicated to IMS, NGN application and service interoperability and certification, eagerly look forward to 2008. In this column, I will take stock of 2007 and set the stage for our fourth Plugfest (the first for 2008).

In 2008 service providers (SPs) globally will aggressively offer more services and new applications for triple play and quadruple play utilizing IMS architectures over wireless, wireline and cable broadband. A recent Frost & Sullivan report1 reveals that SPs now realize that the move to IMS will occur gradually, entailing the interplay of different network applications, technologies and protocols as the networks evolve. To achieve success in this complex and highly competitive environment, SPs need to comprehend how their networks’ evolution will affect their business, and more importantly, what best transitional path to follow. Moreover, carriers now emphasize operational expense savings and not necessarily service capability.

The report specifies indicators of ongoing and impeding IMS technology adoption, such as expected IMS RFP decisions to be announced in 2008, from China Mobile, Comcast, France Telecom/Orange, T-Mobile and T-Mobile USA, Verizon, and Chunghwa Telecom (News - Alert), among others. The report concludes that operators will cap their current technology investments and gradually shift to new equipment purchases. As they embark on their IMS migrations, there will be several paths open to them, including evolutions starting from the softswitch, signaling layer or service mediation (an incremental build-out starting from the SCIM component in the IMS architecture). For more details on this report, please see the January IMS Forum newsletter.

In 2008, IMS will continue to evolve as the only pervasive SP architecture for quadruple play including voice, video, unified communications (UC), Web 2.0 and user mobility. As always, the IMS Forum is here to continue its interoperability testing with Plugfests and to enhance its working group initiatives both in marketing and in the development of state-of-the-art, technical guidelines for service deployment that emphasize return-on-investment.

IMS Forum members and Plugfest participants made a great deal of progress in moving the IMS industry forward this year. The level of interoperability between participating vendors has increased greatly since our first Plugfest, which took place in January 2007. In our last two Plugfests we were able to set up a fully interoperable network running live services and applications. During 2007 we moved from testing basic calls and IMS registration to full applications testing. In Plugfest III we successfully tested the Sh interface for IMS Applications Servers and the Diameter protocol. Also, in Plugfest III participants demonstrated for the first time in the industry their support of the IMS AKA authentication mechanism in addition to SIP authentication. We also demonstrated IMS-to-IP network and services compatibility and our members have witnessed a definite acceleration in the pace of service deployment over the previous 12 months.

Our first Plugfest of 2008, Plugfest IV, whose theme is “IMS Triple Play, OSS/BSS and Billing Applications,” will be held February 25 to 29, 2008, at the UNH InterOp Lab (IOL) in New Hampshire. In Plugfest IV, IMS Forum members will test the interoperability of IMS applications and operational systems over a unified IMS network. These applications, operations, and business support systems are available to all types of service providers including wireless, wireline and cable companies. A complete portfolio of services to be tested is being defined by the IMS Forum Interoperability and Testing Working Group. It will include VoIP services for consumer and enterprise users, various types of video services, fixed-mobile converged (FMC) services including support of femtocell, UC and interworking with IMS and operations support and business support systems (OSS/BSS).

To date, confirmed IMS Plugfest IV participants include HP, Amdocs, Acision (News - Alert), Alpha Networks, Aricent, Data Connection Ltd, Empirix, Ipgallery, Mavenir Systems, Mu Security, NextPoint Networks, Radvision, Shenick Network Systems, Sonus Networks, Starent Networks (News - Alert) and Tekelec. Sponsors include Intel, IMS Magazine/TMC and Pulvermedia. IMS is emerging as a framework to carry current and future advanced multimedia, mobility and nomadicity applications over cellular, WiFi, WiMAX, cable, fiber, and power lines.

IMS Plugfest IV will integrate multiple applications and billing/charging onto a unified IMS network in order to test the deployment by real-world service providers. The Plugfest results can be used by all types of service providers including wireless, wireline and cable companies. The portfolio of services to be tested this time around will include VoIP, triple and quadruple play, OSS/BSS elements, presence and Enterprise UC interworking with IMS. This fourth Plugfest marks an important milestone in our Plugfest series of test events. After a full year of testing we have shown the readiness of the industry for its first real IMS applications and services certification program, IMS Certified™.

We are excited about the upcoming Plugfest IV taking place February 25-29, 2008. For additional information on participation, please contact info@imsforum.org.

Michael Khalilian (MKhalilian@IMSForum.org) is the President and Chairman of the IMS Forum and CTO, Pervasip Corp.

Footnotes:

1 Please refer to “IMS — Ready for Prime Time?” by Ronald Gruia, released by Frost & Sullivan in February 2007. Copyright: Frost & Sullivan, used with permission by the IMS Forum.

IMS Magazine Table of Contents