The NGN/IMS Forum has announced a new applications working group for fixed and mobile broadband networks (3G/4G/LTE (News - Alert), wireline and cable networks).

According to the NGN/IMS Forum, it is dedicated to interoperability and certification of IMS and Next Generation Communications applications and services for fixed, mobile and cable networks.

The new Technical Working Group for Applications -- which runs on fixed and mobile broadband networks -- will help in accelerating the availability of IMS-based applications by offering additional tools and resources to foster the ecosystem of application developers, content creators, network operators and telecom vendors.

The migration of mobile networks to 4G/LTE networks will facilitate in the accommodation of additional applications to be run on mobile devices and in turn end users can look out for a common experience between their fixed and mobile broadband networks.

Consequently, the next generation of applications will be able to take advantage of elements of the IMS network, such as QoS and Voice-over LTE, in order to deliver end-user experiences, such as multi-play, triple play, quadruple play, m-play, which are consistent across both fixed and mobile networks.

“The IMS investment enables network operators to fully exploit applications running either inside their network or by third party application developers and content providers,” said Michael Cooper, VP of wireline marketing and business strategy. “It allows their unique network assets, such as location, presence and preferences, to be leveraged in applications to provide a personalized and differentiating service experience for consumers and business users.”

Additionally, as carriers implement IMS networks, applications can be enhanced to create new end user experiences by simultaneously blending voice, data, video and multimedia.

“Because of the explosion of applications, this Working Group and our upcoming Plugfest 9 will concentrate its efforts on application developers to help them better internetwork web 2.0 applications with IMS networks and BSS/OSS systems (including billing, charging and security),”  said Michael Khalilian (News - Alert), chairman and president, NGN/IMS Forum. “ These efforts will bring the same level of interoperability enabled by our Plugfests from the realm of protocols, network architectures, hardware and devices to the software and applications space by including Application Programmable Interfaces that expose network capabilities such as VoIP, group management, presence and instant messaging.”

Jinu Koshy, GM and global head, applications and devices practice, Wipro (News - Alert) Technologies, said the company is glad to be part of this Working Group and to use its experience as a System Integrator for global SDP, Value Added Services deployments and development.

“One of the key tenets of IMS is to evolve a vendor agnostic, open interface based architecture – through this Working Group we’ll be able to guide the Industry to exploit the IMS network capabilities via Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) & Device frameworks, to realize combinatorial applications, in an interoperable and a standards based manner,”  Koshy said in a statement.

The NGN/IMS Forums’ Plugfests are interoperability events covering NGN services over wireless 3G, 4G, LTE, WiMAX (News - Alert), wireline xDSL, cable, fiber optics broadband and IMS architectures.