The Successful Evolution to IMS: Are You Ready?

3. Partner with a vendor who has an established, proven migration strategy to IMS.

To assist service providers in transitioning to IMS, some vendors today have developed bridge solutions to move from the existing network architecture to IMS. The decision to go with a bridge solution versus a forklift upgrade has already proven to be the preferred situation for Tier 1 telecommunications companies in two international markets.

Whether the decision is to choose a forklift upgrade or bridge solution to transition to IMS, for services providers to experience optimum success, they need to partner with a vendor who has an established, tested, proven migration strategy.

4. The new SCXML standard is a critical success factor for transitioning to IMS.

If you don’t know what SCXML is, now is the time to learn. State Chart XML (SCXML) delivers superior extensibility, rapid application development and accelerated service creation. SCXML allows you to elegantly separate the user interface from back-end business logic and network connectivity. Therefore, service providers can retain selected current applications, rewrite others as needed, and leverage those resources as they gradually evolve their business towards the IMS model. The use of SCXML also enables third-party applications’ providers to rapidly and easily integrate new solutions into this IP-capable platform.

5. It’s all about the applications.

While IMS infrastructure has received a lot of attention, the IP-based future is really about adding value and creating new incremental revenues. Industry participants are all very excited about IMS capabilities such as video, multimedia, presence and location-based applications, but astute service providers know their IMS networks will also need basic announcement capabilities and other service fundamentals.

The key is putting in place an applications infrastructure that will support current services while allowing the future blending of service features to create intelligent “lifestyle” services. These new blended services will truly leverage IMS, building end user demand, and generating higher ARPU performance. Therefore, the right vendor will not only address the key technical requirements of IMS, but will also drive new services based on end user needs, thus ensuring the delivery of not just a technology solution, but a total subscriber solution. The advantage is that in converging all types of multimedia services seamlessly, you can also simultaneously lower costs and enhance subscriber loyalty.

Migration to IMS: Not a question of when, but how

The bottom line is this: IMS is coming, but service providers need a logical and cost-effective way to evolve their networks towards the IP future.

The ideal pathway takes a measured, step-by-step approach and allows service providers to extend the useful life of existing applications, to write or revise applications as needed, and to incorporate the new services consumers want and need … all while transitioning smoothly from a traditional network to an IMS infrastructure. This approach also ensures a positive user experience throughout this transition by allowing service providers to maintain a consistent user interface for easier migration of user skills and expectations. By partnering with the right vendor to leverage a proven bridge solution, service providers can utilize their existing network, and with the advent of IMS deliver services to any kind of device, and deliver applications in a consistent, standardized and profitable way.

Scot Harris is Director of Global Product Marketing for Intervoice, and Andy Smolenski is Director of Technical Alliances for Intervoice.