ITU Preview: IMS closer than it appears

HONG KONG--IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) technology may be closer to implementation that it appears to be, according to the recent testing by the Multi-Service Forum.

The results of the Global MSF Interoperability (GMI 2006) event earlier this fall were “genuinely surprising” to all industry players involved, said Roger Ward, president of the MSF and member of BT’s CTO office, in that they showed that IMS is closer to real-world implementation than anyone expected. Ward spoke at a NetEvents presentation in advance of the ITU Telecom World event here next week.

GMI 2006 involved 18 months of planning, five host sites in four countries, and five major practical test scenarios, Ward said. And at the end of 150 test cases, 350 test runs and 879 pages of test specifications, the conclusion was that “IMS is ready for deployment now” based on the fact that more technology worked “straight away, almost right out of the box” than anyone expected, he said.

The GMI 2006 results don’t indicate a smooth or easy path for IMS, said Jim McEachearn, carrier VoIP strategist for Nortel and vice president of the MSF, but they do represent a significant step forward.

“There are a couple of things where mapping of the functional to the physical needs to be tweaked,” he said. “Generally speaking, things need to be accelerated, but that needs to happen on a foundation that is essentially sound. Major components did work really well. What we are shining a flashlight on is little things around the edge.”

Many of the issues could be dealt with in real-time software revisions by the vendors involved in GMI 2006, he said.

Among the going forward issues are availability of IMS terminals, authentication and the role of session border controllers. The industry must also look at the relationship of IMS to Web services and must encourage the IT community to work with telecom players in integrating the two efforts.

But generally speaking, the GMI 2006 testing message is a positive one for IMS, Ward said.