Supercomm - IMS - 11 June 2005

IMS (converged networks and services):

It is a unified architecture that can support a range of IP-based services for both packet- and circuit-switched networks and employ a range of different wireless and fixed access mechanisms. The main drivers for operators to deploy IMS are to improve their average revenue per user (ARPU) and decrease their opex costs. And it is becoming clear that no single application can do it. So service providers are looking to a bunch of selected applications among voice services, games, triple play, etc to justify the cost of rolling out IP multimedia subsystems (IMS). In addition, IMS is complex and need testing each element of the chain.

So, IMS looks rather a mid-term target (around 2008) than a tomorrow goal. The market, however, is very busy. Vendors are furbishing the portfolio; operators are trialing different pieces of the puzzle. One of the first deployments could be cellular-to-WLAN roaming. Several vendors announced products (Alcatel, Motorola, Lucent, Nokia, Persona,...) and even orders.