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January
2008
•
info@IMSForum.org
• www.IMSForum.org |
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Dear
Fellow IMS Forum Members and Friends:
We
at the IMS Forum®,
the industry’s only association dedicated to IP Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS) application and service interoperability and
certification, are eagerly looking forward to 2008. We welcome
the new year with news that
aggressive service providers globally will offer more services
and new applications for triple play and quadruple play
utilizing IMS architectures. Just read the market forecast
provided below by Frost & Sullivan’s Ron
Gruia.
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. We will announce the results of this Plugfest on
the show floor of the Spring VON.x conference, March 17- 20 in San
Jose, CA.
Operations
and business support systems and security have become
important pieces of the IMS architecture. Business services
are growing and becoming a major initiative for all service
providers and interoperability will play an increasingly
important role in rapid service delivery. 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.
We
have many returning participants to next month’s Plugfest and
also new participants such as HP. I hope you will read the
responses of HP's Nigel Upton in this month's Member Q&A.
Nigel and I talked about the value of Plugfests and
interoperability testing at the HP Communications World 2007
conference in Barcelona last month, where I provided the
keynote speech.
These
conference appearances, where I meet many of the members of
our community, are invaluable in surveying the market, getting
and providing feedback and renewing acquaintances. In April,
IMS Forum Technical Co-Chair Scott Poretsky will lead a
half-day workshop consisting of IMS Forum member speakers at
the IMS 2.0 World Forum in Paris, France. Read more about the
workshop below in our Marketing section. I thank the IMS Forum
members who are leading the various sessions with Scott, and
the many members who make conference appearances on our behalf
throughout the world, throughout the year. You are invaluable
in helping to drive the growth of
our industry.
In
2008 IMS will continue to evolve as the only pervasive Service Providers architecture for
quadruple play including voice, video, 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.
Best
wishes for a happy and productive new year!
Michael
Khalilian Chairman & President IMS
Forum "The Voice of IP
Convergence" MKhalilian(at)IMSForum.org |
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Market Research
Corner – IMS in 2007 and
2008 Outlook |
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by
Ronald
Gruia, Program Leader and Principal Analyst, Frost &
Sullivan; Ron covers emerging communications solutions. He can
be reached at rgruia@frost.com.
IMS
in 2007
While
the migration to IMS appears to be in the cards, the exact
time frame of adoption by most service providers is not clear.
There has been progress on the standardization front, with
initiatives by bodies such as the 3GPP/3GPP2, ETSI Tispan and
efforts such as A-IMS and interoperability testing by the IMS
Forum and other industry forums. However, the market
development has occurred at a slower pace than originally
anticipated. The reasons for this slower uptake are
manifold:
•
Service
providers are still adjusting to the business case – in a
Frost & Sullivan survey conducted earlier this
year1, roughly 33 percent of operators raised
questions
about the value proposition and sales pitch of IMS
•
Operators
are still coping with how they should migrate their networks
and services to IMS
•
IMS
standardization efforts are ongoing, therefore service
providers believe that it is better to wait until things
become more settled
•
Other
“high rider” caveats mentioned included the lack of openness
of IMS (i.e. the proprietary nature of some of the solutions
available in today’s marketplace) and the need for more
interoperability testing
Service
providers are realizing that the move to IMS will be a gradual
transition over time, entailing the
interplay of different network applications, technologies and
protocols as the networks evolve. In order to achieve success
in the prevalent complex and highly competitive environment,
they need to comprehend how the evolution of their networks
will affect their business, and more importantly, what is the
best transitional path to follow. In addition, the carrier
emphasis is being placed on operational expense (OPEX) savings
and not necessarily on service capability, which echoes a
similar message from Stu Elby (Verizon VP of Network
Architecture).
Some
carriers such as Telemar (Brazilian operator and the largest
wireline carrier in South America) are taking a more gradual
and pragmatic evolution, choosing to deploy services that can
be accessed by subscribers regardless of whether they are
being served by next generation network (NGN) or legacy
infrastructure. Delmar’s pre-IMS approach enables the company
to separate the timing of investments in NGN/IMS access layer
infrastructure from the timing of introduction of new
services.
The
majority of carriers that have chosen IMS are integrated
operators with wireline and wireless networks. Not
surprisingly, they typically elected to go along the fixed
path to launch their initial IMS applications (such as IP
Centrex at TDC in Denmark and residential telephony with
Telephonic in Spain). Why the emphasis on wireline services?
Because they are on the fixed side, these operators do not
have the same obstacles as those on the mobile side (namely
bandwidth, quality of service and handset availability). As
far as wireline IMS applications go, the enterprise will play
a significant role in the future, with more rollouts of IP
Centrex (hosted IP telephony).
Outlook
for 2008
While
the IMS acronym might have not been as widely used this year
as it was in 2006, a closer look reveals that in fact there
have been many positive indicators that suggest that the
adoption of the technology is under way. Perhaps the smaller
number of press releases containing the IMS buzzword is more
of a hint that the technology has already passed through the
first peak on
its hype cycle and is now undergoing further refinements prior
to becoming more widely deployed. There is a number of IMS RFP
decisions that we expect will be announced in 2008, including,
among others:
·
China
Mobile: decision expected in the second half of the year and
the size of the deal is rumored to be in the US$ 200-400
million range
·
Comcast:
decision expected sometime in the first semester, and
competition will be between NSN, Ericsson, Nortel and
Alcatel-Lucent
·
France
Telecom/Orange: while the timing of the announcement is still
unknown (the results of the RFP were expected to be disclosed
in Q4 2007), we believe that that players such as Ericsson,
Alcatel-Lucent, NSN and ZTE are still in the running. On
the other hand, there are indications that FT may take a
multi-step approach to IMS, by first moving to a VoIP
architecture (which we think must be SIP based to transition
to IMS)
·
T-Mobile
USA: decision rumored to be in the first half of the year,
with players such as Alcatel-Lucent, NSN and Nortel in the
running
·
Verizon:
the timing of the announcement is still to be determined;
however, there are rumors that this will be a close battle
between Alcatel-Lucent and NSN
·
Besides
the above tenders, Chunghwa Telecom just announced the NSN
(Nokia Siemens Networks) as the winner of its own IMS RFP in
early December 2007, a deal worth about 21 million Euros
In
conclusion, operators will start capping their investments in
current technologies and gradually begin to shift them 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).
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IMS
Forum Member In The News |
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Q
& A with Nigel Upton, BSS Products General Manager,
HP
What
IMS services and products does Hewlett-Packard
offer?
My
role is to manage HP’s
BSS products within HP’s Communications, Media and
Entertainment (CME) vertical. I have the portfolio
of BSS products which includes mediation and real-time
charging, data retention for compliance, and business
intelligence, revenue assurance and fraud management. We have
been doing a lot of work in the BSS space with real-time
charging, and its impact for billing vendors. So, we are very
interested in the OSS/BSS focus of the IMS Plugfests,
particularly the upcoming Plugfest IV.
What
are some of the key obstacles that service providers face in
implementing IMS?
Our
customers are always asking us, ‘What will IMS do for us?’
They understand the principles behind it – the ability to have
a flexible architecture that allows them to use best-of-breed
technology, to introduce new services really quickly, and to
do promotions and change pricing on the fly. That’s what they
want to do. They regard IMS as a path to get there, but they
also have huge network environments that are extremely
complex. They want to know how to move from what they have
today to where they can be IMS compliant and receive all of
those benefits.
At
HP we engineer our products with these requirements in mind.
So when we provide technology to our customers, we are not
providing them a complete end-to-end solution based on all HP
intellectual property. We pull in partners with best-in-class
technology. For example, we don’t provide billing ourselves,
we partner with billing companies like Amdocs. We work with
all the network equipment providers who are providing
switches. We do not believe that one network equipment
provider or billing vendor should provide everything from the
billing all the way through to the switch. HP provides the
mediation and real-time charging platforms in the middle that
allow the billing systems and switches to be added in
according to whichever vendor is found to be best for the job
at hand.
How
can the IMS Forum’s Plugfest benefit HP and your customers?
Customers
need a flexible architecture that utilizes best-of-breed components but things
have to work together, and they have to work in an existing
environment. That is where the Plugfests come in. IMS is
required for real-time charging. All of the elements and
applications have to work together, and they have to work in
an existing environment. The IMS Plugfests give us an
opportunity to demonstrate and prove this.
Who
are some of HP’s customers and what IMS services are they
deploying?
To
give you a sense of scale, we have about 150 mediation
customers and roughly 20 percent are now deploying real-time
charging on our HP Internet Usage Manager (IUM) platform. We
have just gone live with a commercial deployment to around two
million mobile users with China Telecom. They went through a
year-long process to test components with a number of vendors.
We were one of four or five tested, passed the certification
and are the only vendor currently deployed.
Our
global customers include Vodafone Spain in Europe. In Asia
Pacific, we have a number of new mobile providers in India and
elsewhere throughout the region. In the Americas, we have
substantial presence in multiple properties of America Movies
Corporation as well as leading cable and wireless providers.
We also have a large number of big installs in Russia
including MTS. The technology used on the mobile side in
Russia is amazing. We see a lot of prepaid services being
initially deployed on IMS in emerging markets. Prepaid is very
popular in emerging markets and, in many cases, emerging
markets have less legacy to deal with, making it much easier
to roll out newer technology that enables real-time charging.
Real-time
charging has been driving the requirement for IMS. It is
important for prepaid because charging must occur in
real-time, and keep a running balance. For example, when
someone buys a $20 prepaid card, you have to know when the
customer is coming close to $19.99 in order to stop the
service. Real-time charging must be layered on top of the more
traditional batch mediation, to make legacy systems and newer
systems all work together. We use the Diameter protocol, which
is part of the IMS environment. This enables us to build on
our software strengths, and we can partner with providers of
billing, rating and balance engines to offer best-of-breed
services.
We
are seeing these very advanced services taking off outside of
the US. In Europe, everyone is soccer-mad and they want the
replay of the latest goal scores sent to their cell phones.
Consumer demands like this make charging in real time
necessary for these new services, and gives customers control
over their spending which should drive the uptake of these
services. At the same time, real-time charging gives
service providers credit control, so they can harvest all the
revenue from these new services.
What
IMS products have you released to
date?
We
have been focusing on IMS compliance since 2006. We released
the latest version of the product, HP IUM 5.0 at the beginning
of 2007. We have just released new performance benchmarks, and
we continue to evolve the technology by developing faster
hardware and cost-effective software.
For
example, High deal, a pricing and rating solutions provider,
and HP IUM have just announced new breakthroughs in online
charging. We are able to deliver huge performance gains at a
fraction of the current costs. In tests conducted at the HP
Solutions Center in Richardson, Texas, the combined High
deal-HP IUM solution delivered four times higher throughput
and half the latency of any other published benchmark. The
combined High deal and HP systems performed charging control,
rating and balance update operations with end-to-end
transaction rates of 24,000 transactions per second (TPS) for
session-based charging with an average latency of 23
milliseconds per transaction. In an event charging scenario
for messaging services, throughput climbed to 49,000 TPS with
average latency of 8 milliseconds.
Our
combined online charging system (OCS) solution drives down the
cost of new service rollouts today, and provides an open,
future-proof platform for high transaction-volume processing –
exactly what our customers have asked for as they deploy
IMS-compliant service delivery platforms. Approximately 30 of
our customers are currently working on deploying IMS-compliant
architectures around real-time billing.
What
are some of the key factors for IMS success in the industry?
Deployments
have started and that is good news. Leadership, continued
investment, testing and certification are all needed. HP is in
a good space with respect to this, and we have the confidence
to move forward step by step.
It
will take continual investment of the vendors and continual
proof of real-world success to move the industry forward. HP
develops the best-in-breed platforms for IMS-based B/OSS and
billing, and then we develop an end-to-end view by pulling in
partners to fill in all the gaps. Single vendor, end-to-end
solutions are often proprietary and therefore not
IMS-compliant which means it is much more difficult to swap
components and bring in new best-in-class
technology.
Customers
are telling us that they are sick and tired of paying huge
amounts of money to vendors who are building proprietary
systems for them. They want to be able to move to more of a
plug and play, best-of-breed IMS-based architecture that works
with their legacy systems. The key to success is giving them
real world examples of how this works so they can have the
confidence to start migrating step by step into an IMS
architecture. If you mention fork lift upgrades, they will run
a mile.
To
have your company considered for a profile in the Q & A
section of this newsletter contact the newsletter
editor.
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IMS
Forum Working Groups
Update |
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To
participate in at any of the following working Groups email info(at)imsforum.org
Technical
Working Group Plans for Plugfest IV
The
last two months of the year were very busy with the IMS Forum
Technical Working Group. Manuel Vexler, Chair of the Technical
WG chaired the first day of Telecom Signaling World Forum, in
London. He also presented on behalf of the IMS Forum
“Managing The Signalling Services Enabled In IMS
Networks” Other Forum members presenting at the
conference and the post-conference seminars included Jeri
Kuhn, and Robby Benedict, both from
Tekelec.
Manuel
also was the keynote speaker at the Radvision IMS Express day
in Tel-Aviv, which involved over 40 local companies and more
than 160 participants. In December, IMS Forum, Next Point and
Mavenir took part in the Base Station and Femtocell
conferences in Dallas.
At
the conference, Peter Landry from Current Analysis publicly
acknowledged the IMS Forum Plugfest interoperability event as
the best interoperability in the
industry.
We
are excited about the upcoming Plugfest IV to take place
between February 25-29, 2008.
The
theme of Plugfest IV is "IMS Triple Play, OSS/BSS and Billing
Applications." In Plugfest IV IMS Forum members will test the
interoperability of IMS applications and operational systems
over a unified IMS network. These applications and operations
and business support systems (OSS/BSS) 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 voice over Internet protocol
(VoIP) services for consumer and enterprise users, various
types of video services, fixed-mobile converged (FMC) services
including support of femtocell, unified communications (UC)
and interworking with IMS and (OSS/BSS).
To
date, the confirmed list of Plugfest IV participants include:
Acision - Alpha Networks - Data Connection Ltd - Empirix - HP - Amdocs - Mavenir Systems - Mu
Security - NextPoint Networks- Radvision - Sonus
Networks - Starent Networks
- Tekelec -
Shenick
Network Systems – IPgallery
More
detail on Plugfest IV can be found on our Web site.
New
IMS White
Papers Now Available
(member only access)
Two
new white papers can now be found on our Web site under White
Papers. They are:
·
Rich
Multimedia Applications on an IMS
Framework
·
Prack
Method And Usage: The Role Of Prack In
IMS
The
first white paper, Rich Multimedia Applications on an IMS
Framework, acknowledges that innovative IMS services will be
the key motivator for operators to implement IMS
infrastructure. Sponsored Call and Video Ring Back Tone
(V-RBT) services described in this paper are services that
can’t easily be offered over legacy cellular network and hence
require IMS. Furthermore, these services bring fresh revenue
streams and new business value chain models to operators. Both
services are implemented over IMS protocols, and have been
widely tested with many vendor components at the IMS Forum
Plugfest events.
This
paper describes the implementation of advertising
revenue-generating multimedia applications leveraging the IP
Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) infrastructure. While such
applications would typically run on mobile handsets of 3G
networks, they can be made available to users of 2G mobile
networks or PC users of wireline and cable networks without
altering the architecture of the service layer. The
convergence layer from IP to GSM or fixed networks sets the
foundation to seamlessly run services on multiple networks and
clients. IMS services can be rolled out without needing to
wait for a full deployment of IMS. This paper focuses on
“sponsored call” and “video Ring Back Tone” services for
illustrative purposes. Other services or variants of these
applications can be derived easily.
The
second white paper focuses on the PRACK (Provisional Response
ACKnowledgement) method. In SIP, provisional responses are
typically not sent reliably;
however, with the use of PRACK, as specified in RFC 3262 and
adopted by the 3GPP, these responses can be sent reliably to
ensure efficiency and success of SIP session establishments.
PRACK procedures described in SIP specifications have been
unclear, and SIP vendors implemented them differently. As a
result, a number of PRACK interoperability issues have
surfaced. This paper provides a detailed explanation of the
PRACK method and a call flow example in an effort to clarify
ambiguity within SIP 1xx reliable response specifications, and
offers guidance for a PRACK implementation.
The
intention of these white papers is to make technical
information readily accessible to service providers and
vendors. A number of member companies are contributing to the
white paper program including Argela, Mascon Global, Mu Security, Encore, NextPoint and others.
The
committee is working on its final review of Sponsored Call
Applications and Secure Mobile Communications
with IMS AKA Signaling. Other important titles are
in the pipeline.
Any
person or company interested in contributing to an original
white paper should contact Scott Poretsky at technicalchair(at)imsforum.org.
Marketing
Working Group
The
IMS Forum gratefully acknowledges Intel as the first to
announce its Platinum sponsorship for Plugfest IV. We also
welcome back IMS Magazine and Pulvermedia Inc. as media
sponsors.
Nigel
Upton, BSS Products General Manager, HP Communications, Media
& Entertainment, and Michael Khalilian, Chairman and
President, IMS Forum, attending HP Communications World 2007
in Barcelona
Ghada
Hanna, Billing and Interconnect Manager, Umniah Telecom,
Jordan; Michael Khalilian, Chairman and President, IMS Forum;
and Carol Singh, Worldwide Solutions Marketing, Communication,
Media & Entertainment, HP, attending HP Communications
World 2007 in Barcelona
We
are pleased to note that the IMS Forum has recently
participated in the following industry
events:
·
Nov.
5 – 8: Telecoms
Signaling World Forum, Central London,
UK
o
Manuel
Vexler, IMS Forum, “Managing The Signaling Services That Are
Enabled In IMS Networks”
o
Jiri
Kuthan, Tekelec, “Tekelec Case Study: Understanding How To
Deliver Effective Automated VoIP Services In Signaling
Networks”
o
Robby
Benedyk and Jiri Kuthan, Tekelec, post-conference
workshop, “Network Evolution - A Signaling
Perspective”
·
Nov.
8: IMS Express by Radvision –
Tel-Aviv
o
Manuel
Vexler opened the day with the IMS Forum
keynote
·
Nov.
7: IMS
MMD Show, Dallas TX
·
Nov.
27 – 29, 2007: HP Communications
World 2007, Barcelona, Spain
o
Michael
Khalilian of IMS Forum provided the keynote address on Nov.
28
·
Dec.
3 – 7, 2007: IMS
Global Congress 2007,
Amsterdam
o
Dan
Bantukul, Tekelec, presented, “Optimizing the Migration to IMS
from Both the Operator’s and the Customer’s
Perspective”
·
Dec.
3 – 4, 2007: 6th
International Basestation Conference, Dallas
o
Manuel
Vexler, VP and Co-Chair of the Technical Working Group, IMS
Forum, presented "What will be the Consumer Experience of FMC
beyond the Home and Hot Spots?" on Dec.
4
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IMS
Forum 2008 Calendar of
Events |
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The
IMS Forum’s active pace of speaking at and participating in
several upcoming industry events worldwide
continues.
·
Jan.
21 – 22: IPTelco World,
London
o
Scott
Poretsky (Next Point) will participate in a round
table discussion on “IMS Applications and Services” on Jan.
21
·
Jan.
23 – 25: Internet Telephony Conference &
Expo, Miami
o
Michael
Khalilian will chair a round table discussion, “IP Contact
Center State of the Market” on Jan. 24,
2:15pm
o
Manuel
Vexler to moderate “SIP Trunking for the SMB” on Jan.24 at 9:00am
·
March
17- 20: Spring VON.x, San Jose,
CA
o
Plugfest
IV participants and the IMS Forum will announce results from
Plugfest IV
·
Apr.
1 –3: CTIA Wireless 2008, Las
Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas,
Nevada
·
Apr.
22 – 24: IMS 2.0 World Forum,
Convention Centre, Paris, France
o
Pre-conference
workshop, led by Scott Poretsky, on Apr. 21, 10:30 a.m. – 6:30
p.m., on “Policy Decision and Enforcement to Deliver IMS
Services”
o
This
workshop has generated a lot of interest in the industry! It
will provide an overview of IMS services and service blending,
the policies required to enforce delivery of those services,
and the policy-making and delivery process in IMS. Policies
for security, quality of service (QoS), mobility, and charging
will be addressed. Each of the IMS core network components
involved in the policy enforcement and delivery process will
be discussed so that network operators can make best-of-breed
decisions in a fully interoperable network. Application of the
IMS policy framework to build Pre-IMS (also referred to as
IMS-Lite or IMS-Like) networks will also be
discussed.
o
Session
presenters include: Ron Gruia, Frost and Sullivan; Hila Dahan,
IP Gallery; Anantha Ramu, Acision; Adi Paz, Radvision; John
DiPietro, Starent Networks; Bruce Perlmutter, Sonus Networks;
Travis Russell, Tekelec; Kushanava Laha, Aricent; Deepak
Wadhwa, Continuous Computing; Ranjith Mukundan, Wipro; Jerome Sicard,
Hewlett-Packard; Brian Foskett, Mavenir
o
Round
table discussion, with Scott Poretsky, on Apr. 23 on the
“Industry Debate on Standardization Activities to Support
Interoperability and Integration”
o
Panel
discussion, with Scott Poretsky, on Apr. 23, “Is there Enough
Coordination between the Various Standardization Bodies? How
Can Cooperation Improve?”
o
Keynote
session on Apr. 24, “Exploring the Imperative to Invest in
NGNs and Challenging Perceptions About the Extent to Which IMS
is Central to NGN Architecture Strategies”
·
May
13 - 15, 2008: ISPCON, Chicago,
IL
·
May
13 – 15: Informa Telecoms and Media IMS Asia
2008, Singapore, Speaker TBD
·
May
18 – 20, NCTA Cable Show ‘08, New
Orleans
·
May
18 –22: TM Forum Management World
2008, Acropolis Congress and
Exposition
Center, Nice, France
·
Jun.
16 – 19: NXTcomm, Las Vegas, Nevada (IMSF member meetings &
election)
·
Sep.
9 – 12: Internet Telephony Fall,
Los Angeles, CA
·
Sep.
10 – 12: CTIA Wireless IT and
Entertainment , San Francisco
·
Sep.
30 – Oct. 2: WiMAX World Series,
Chicago, IL
·
Oct.
21 – 23: Mobile Internet World,
Boston, MA
·
Oct.
27 – 30: Fall VON, Boston,
MA
·
Nov.
10 – 13: TelcoTV, Anaheim Convention
Center, Orange County, Calif.
Spring
VON.X 2008, March 17 - 20,
will focus on the cutting edge applications and technologies
that are driving the market in next generation VoIP, wireless,
video and data services. VON.X includes a comprehensive conference
program alongside the VON
Expo, a 225+ company Exhibit Hall featuring all of the
industry’s leading companies providing Internet Communications
products, services and solutions. As a member of the IMS
Forum you are entitled to attend The VON Expo free of
charge. Register online at www.springvonx.com/register
and enter priority code IMS. You must be pre-registered
by March 16 to redeem this offer. Register
here , select the Expo Only option and enter priority code
IMSEM to redeem this offer.
GET
REAL about your business at ISPCON: The Internet Industry
Event!
ISPCON
is where the service provider industry goes to GET REAL about
the future of their businesses. Isn't it time you increase
ARPU? Pump up profits? Optimize your operations? Find out
what's next? Whatever your plans, ISPCON will help you GET
REAL about them. This is the industry's only forum where peers
learn from peers in real one-on-one discussion about what
works, what doesn't and what's next. To access the IMS Forum
member discount use Customer Code FISPAF7 at http://www.ispcon.com
Showcase
Your Expertise and Leadership: Call for
Speakers
The
IMS Forum invites members to join its exclusive Speakers’
Bureau. Member companies have an excellent opportunity to
market their companies and senior executives while
representing the IMS Forum at future trade shows and
conferences. Simply contact us with a copy of the proposed
speaker’s bio and indicate any specific IMS-related speaking
topics and expertise. Speaking topic abstracts of one or two
paragraphs are especially helpful.
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IMS
Forum Press Releases and Media |
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IMS
Forum in the News |
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Why
Join the IMS Forum |
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The
IMS Forum's mission is to accelerate the interoperability of
IMS applications and services, enabling enterprise and
residential consumers to quickly benefit from the delivery of
quadruple play voice, video, Internet and mobile services over
broadband via cable, mobile and fixed networks.
IMS
applications and services comprise residential VoIP,
entertainment including IPTV and gaming, IP Centrex / IP PBX
and unified communications for business including fixed-mobile
converged services, videoconferencing and web-collaboration.
IMS networks include DSL, Cable, GSM, UMTS, Wi-Fi and WiMAX
implementations.
The
IMS Forum Plugfests, typically held every 3 to 4 months, bring
together dozens of industry-leading IMS vendors from around
the world, all of whom build real, full-featured, IMS networks
during the test event.
If
you are interested in joining the IMS Forum, Plugfests or in
participating in any of the working groups or marketing
programs, please contact the IMS Forum.
All
are invited to participate in the industry's first open IMS Community
where Forum members, those involved in various IMS working
groups, the IMS LinkedIn group, and our industry colleagues
around the world can participate in active, mutually
beneficial discussions. Take a moment to register now.
·
Members
are leading and shaping the future of IMS. Joining the IMS
Forum enables members to:
·
Verify
and certify interoperability, reduce costs and accelerate time
to market
·
Participate
in technical working groups focusing on service creation and
applications for IMS architecture framework as well as IMS
deployment issues
·
Gain
additional visibility through the IMS Forum's Speakers Bureau,
public relations and marketing
programs
·
Showcase
member companies at major telecom, cable, and wireless events
in North America, Asia, and Europe
·
Receive
current market and technology information through newsletters,
reports, white papers and
conferences
·
Gain
access to an informed professional network of industry
consultants and accredited experts
We
welcome your feedback on this newsletter. IMS Forum Press
& Newsletter Contact: pr@imsforum.org | |