IMS Pioneers Pave the Way For Success

By Åsa Carlson

IMS-based services are now breaking through in several areas. This was apparent when some of the pioneering operators shared their experiences of new communication services with their competitors at an Ericsson (News - Alert)-hosted event in November.

For two days, more than 100 executives from 45 operators — both frontrunners and their more cautious competitors — came together as an industry in a small but important step towards ensuring the global success of IMS.

Information and knowledge-sharing are crucial to the further success of new communication services based on IMS. One successful example of such collaboration is the Rich Communication Suite (News - Alert) (RCS). In one European country, several mobile operators have made a joint effort to launch RCS nationwide, showing the importance of cooperation in boosting new mass-market services beyond SMS and MMS. Those who attended the Ericsson event shared this story and many other presentations on different ways to successfully deliver IMS-based services to consumers.

One European operator explained how they are decreasing enterprise-communication costs dramatically by offering a new converged-communication solution to SMEs. Their next step is to now target larger firms too. The operator provides the company with one net solution for mobile, fixed and data communication. The enterprise saves money because the solution includes unlimited calling within the firm as well as on-line control of operation and costs.

Another European operator talked about their vision of being an integrated operator and their long-term plan for PSTN replacement to VoIP. The operator has 1 million subscribers and is growing rapidly. “IMS will provide a common control and service layer to every subscriber,” the operator’s representative said. A third operator from a Nordic country shared the company’s first steps into IMS. Its strategy is to become a competitive multimedia player, offering services that will work regardless of the network used to access it. As a first step in its IMS rollout, it is now offering VoIP to residential users and hosted IP-PBX (News - Alert) and business trunking to enterprises.

The operator presentations reinforced the general impression that IMS has had the strongest possible start in VoIP and enterprise services. Many operators choosing IMS say that their greatest motivation for doing so is that they are able to add new services easily and enjoy a short time-to-market for new, innovative applications. Other strong reasons are the need for transformation to all-IP networks with the potential to decrease operating costs. With this transformation, several operators stressed the need for using standards like MMTel (News - Alert) for voice services in the IP domain.

However, some challenges remain, such as the availability of terminals in the market supporting IMS, as well as the integration with OSS/BSS. Most operators are also concerned with business models, which services to provide and figuring out what customers will be willing to pay for. During his presentation, a senior expert in consumer behavior from Ericsson ConsumerLab said: “For a telecom operator, it’s about keeping its position as a single point of contact for the subscriber and providing services that the customer wants; some services have to be provided for free, while others the customers will pay for.”

An application and widget developer emphasized the importance of standardized technology with open application programming interfaces (APIs) and close collaboration between the telecom world and application developers. Traditional telecom operators consider ISPs as both partners and competitors. It is therefore important for telcos to understand new business models and how to cooperate with new players. Looking ahead, finding new business models will be one of their main challenges.

There are more examples from which to gain inspiration. One Asian operator that didn’t attend this year’s conference is challenging the competition by targeting the broadband market with HSPA. They provide their subscribers with a multi-broadband solution, including 2G and 3G telephony, mobile broadband and WiFi (News - Alert) hotspots in the region’s biggest city. The broadband subscribers can access the Internet both with their computers and WiFi phones that are a part of the subscription.

Looking into the future, the expert from Ericsson ConsumerLab stressed that, eventually, every device that might benefit from a network connection would have one. This means that consumers will demand convenience and a ubiquitous connection – an evolution from today’s mobile services and Internet to any service on any screen from any access point. Full-scale IMS can make this vision a reality and will open up the telecom industry for new mass-market services. Because IMS is happening now, operators that want to be involved need to be prepared. But this is not only a matter for vendors and operators; to guarantee its success, IMS must be a true cross-industry phenomenon — a view shared by the event’s speakers and delegates.

Åsa Carlson is responsible for driving the marketing of IMS across Ericsson.

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