IP Multimedia Subsystem needs to scale for fixed-mobile convergence

Interview with Aricent

VoIP, unified messaging, products and services

Kicking off our series about IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) progress, today we'll focus on IMS deployments for fixed-mobile convergence with highlights from an interview we had recently with Ajay Gupta, vice president of the wireless and convergence business unit at Aricent. Aricent offers a range of software services and products for communications equipment manufacturers, device manufacturers and service providers; for this interview we focused on the experienced learned from the company's portfolio that includes femtocell technology, network integration services, and IMS testing.

According to Gupta: “The adoption of IMS for wireless [services] end-to-end is far away in the U. S. and Asia.” Though he sees IMS as further along in Europe than in the rest of the world. He said: “Handset suppliers are evaluating and finding niche applications; they are more in the experimentation stage than in the adoption phase.”

One big motivator for service providers moving to FMC is the increased spectrum efficiency and the resulting increased available bandwidth to wireless devices. For carriers that own both a wireline and wireless network the efficiency is even better, according to Gupta. But challenges remain in the quest for efficiency. For example, service providers don’t have experience with simultaneously managing complex IP devices in millions of homes (like Wi-Fi routers connected to IP handsets) so supporting the wide variety of devices at home on a large scale with the required interoperability may prove to be difficult.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

Kicking off our series about IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) progress, today we'll focus on IMS deployments for fixed-mobile convergence with highlights from an interview we had recently with Ajay Gupta, vice president of the wireless and convergence business unit at Aricent. Aricent offers a range of software services and products for communications equipment manufacturers, device manufacturers and service providers; for this interview we focused on the experienced learned from the company's portfolio that includes femtocell technology, network integration services, and IMS testing.

According to Gupta: “The adoption of IMS for wireless [services] end-to-end is far away in the U. S. and Asia.” Though he sees IMS as further along in Europe than in the rest of the world. He said: “Handset suppliers are evaluating and finding niche applications; they are more in the experimentation stage than in the adoption phase.”

One big motivator for service providers moving to FMC is the increased spectrum efficiency and the resulting increased available bandwidth to wireless devices. For carriers that own both a wireline and wireless network the efficiency is even better, according to Gupta. But challenges remain in the quest for efficiency. For example, service providers don’t have experience with simultaneously managing complex IP devices in millions of homes (like Wi-Fi routers connected to IP handsets) so supporting the wide variety of devices at home on a large scale with the required interoperability may prove to be difficult.

The second biggest challenge for FMC providers may turn out to be the customers’ perceptions about service maintenance because customers expect a one-stop call if the service doesn’t work. To resolve the service issues, Gupta contends that “if the service provider deploys FMC, the customers will expect the devices to be managed.” Therefore, when carriers construct a business case for FMC, they will need to make sure that the spectrum and bandwidth efficiency gains aren’t overtaken by the associated management costs.

To solve the issues of interoperability, scale, and to keep ongoing maintenance costs at a minimum, Gupta believes that the ultimate solution must include an IMS client on the handset and therefore a smart phone will be needed to support the memory and functionality IMS requires. Using this approach, the architecture provides an end-to-end IP connection with IMS supported in both the handset and in the femtocell.

Next time: Sprint speaks out about its experience-to-date with IMS.

Read more about voip & convergence in Network World's VoIP & Convergence section.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.