somewhere over the rainbow

vendors: follow the ims road

WE ARE DEFINITELY NOT IN KANSAS anymore. SUPERCOMM 2005 proved service provider networks are undergoing a change akin to the transition from black-and-white to color. What’s beyond the rainbow? It’s not Oz, but IMS — an apt analogy on two fronts: It’s not to be found in the real world and it is a likely destination for communications networks nonetheless.

IMS, or IP Multimedia Subsystem, is not a product or component but an architecture or framework that specifies an access- and device-agnostic service-delivery model. Its celebrity comes from its ability to provide “service velocity,” another industry buzzword meaning abbreviated service creation, which in turn speeds revenue generation.

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While its origins are in the wireless realm — a product of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) — IMS is evolving as a key component of next-generation architectures specified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and even CableLabs. Intended or not, IMS is considered by many to be key to fixed-mobile network convergence at both the infrastructure and service levels. Revenue from fixed-mobile convergence services is expected to reach $80 billion — 6 percent of communications spending worldwide — by 2009, according to a June 2005 report from Pyramid Research.

“IMS is the secret sauce of the converged network,” says Adrian Nemcek, president of networks and executive vice president for Motorola Inc., speaking at a plenary session last month at SUPERCOMM in Chicago.

IMS defines three network layers — transport, control and service (see diagram above). It “horizontalizes” common functions, explains Ronald Gruia, senior analyst for Frost & Sullivan. In contrast to the vertical silos characteristic of the point solutions deployed in today’s communications networks, IMS offers a more efficient approach, he says.

Gruia says time-to-market can be reduced from as long as two years to less than six months.

IMS is integral to creating an on-demand business model, says Gary Cohen, general manager for the global communications sector at IBM Corp., who also spoke at the plenary panel in Chicago. “The question,” he says, “is how to progress to get there.”

Indeed, the mantra at SUPERCOMM 2005 was bridging the gap between legacy networks and IMS-enabled next-generation networks.

Tekelec, for example, unveiled at the event what it calls its “Real Convergence” strategy to guide operators through the transition.

The strategy builds on Tekelec’s IMS-based solutions with a series of transitional technologies that help service providers deliver services not only to SIP clients but to endpoints in the legacy realm, says Mark Whittier, vice president of marketing for Tekelec.

The intent is to allow operators to leverage their existing signaling and voice investments to deploy IMS-based services today that bridge networks from the application, signaling or switching layers.

The components that might be called upon to enable delivery of applications, such as SMS or IP Centrex, from the IP world into the TDM world, include a Service Management Gateway, a Mobility Manager, a SIP-to-SS7 Gateway and a Presence Gateway.

Whittier says these components would be incorporated into a larger system with other Tekelec IMS-based functionality, such as media gateways, wireless media gateways and session border controllers in the IMS access layer; messaging servers, VoIP applications servers and presence servers in the IMS service layer; and TekCore call session control and breakout gateway control functionality as well as ENUM translation and routing functionality in the IMS control layer.

“The beauty of IMS is that it is socially open,” says Shiv K. Bakhshi, director of mobile and Wi-Fi infrastructure for IDC. It can be designed from where you are to where you need to go, he says, noting the solution differs by the starting point.

“Each carrier has its own view of how it wants to build out its next-gen network,” says Mike Cooper, director of global marketing and strategies for the convergence core solutions group at Lucent Technologies. “Every carrier is different. Some already have pieces and want other pieces of ours. Some are very interested in the total solution.”

At SUPERCOMM, Lucent introduced platform and software enhancements to its IMS portfolio. Among these is the Lucent Session Manager, which blends voice, video and other capabilities, and supports their delivery across networks to a selection of devices. It also introduced an application server and a presence server.

“The wireless side is deploying a lot more applications first,” Cooper says. “The wireline side is deploying more media gateway, call session control first.”

Frost & Sullivan’s Gruia says there are plenty of reasons why carriers still are deploying nonintegrated services. One is the standard is a work-in-progress. Another is institutional memory. “We drank the Kool-Aid before,” he says, pointing to the unrealized Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN). “The million-dollar question is ‘Can the failure happen again?’”

Gruia says one key difference between IMS and AIN is accelerated service creation. Because SIP is widely known, its use in IMS will shorten application development time, he says. And, because the IMS value chain is more fragmented, service providers play vendors off each other to get the best, fastest and least expensive solution.

Aside from differences in today’s technology, differences in market conditions may be the linchpin for IMS’s ultimate success, he says, noting telcos and MSOs are forced to look at ways to bring services to market in competition with one another.

Indeed, ABI Research analyst Ian Cox says every Tier 1 fixed and wireless network service provider will announce SIP-based services running over IMS in the next six to 12 months. “Any who don’t will be like airlines that missed out on the jet engine,” he says.

Ken Epps, CEO for BayPackets Inc., concedes service providers are curious about IMS. “A lot of them see it as a way to save their skins,” he says, explaining why so many vendors are articulating their IMS visions when the revenue from IMS is a ways off yet.

At SUPERCOMM BayPackets announced its IMS-compliant Agility Parlay/OSA gateway, which provides an API so that ISVs can develop applications without having telco expertise.

BayPackets provides two other products at the IMS service layer, a SIP Application Server and a Network Service Platform (NSP). “Most emerging players on the IMS service layer only have IP,” says Epps. “We have SS7 and SIP, and we can run on wireline and wireless networks.” For carriers migrating to the IP world, BayPackets’ NSP provides a bridge, he adds.

Later this year, BayPackets plans to launch a Mobility Management Application Server to enable the delivery of services over multiple access networks, including mobile, cable, DSL and Wi-Fi, via a single number.

Similarly, Ericsson will be adding a Mobile Application Server (MAS) to its IMS-ready product line to mediate between IP and circuit- switched telephony for mobile and fixed networks to handle dual-mode Wi-Fi/GSM and Wi-Fi/CDMA phones. The MAS is not commercially available, says Michael Coyne, chief systems architect with Ericsson, but will be used in a market trial later this year by a consumer VoIP provider. Coyne says the provider decided to replace its softswitch vendor in favor of Broadsoft Inc.’s softswitch paired with Ericsson’s MAS in order to extend the availability of the VoIP service to mobile networks in the future.

NexTone Communications Inc. used SUPERCOMM to introduce its IP Multimedia Exchange (IMX) platform designed to enable seamless interconnectivity between 3G mobile, VoIP and IMS-based networks.

Bridgeport Networks Inc. also is playing in this space with its Network Convergence Gateway. NCG sits in the IMS service layer like an application server, but its application is “convergence,” explains Carl Fretter, vice president of product management. “We call it IMS Phase 0 because there are no IMS networks deployed. Service providers are talking about slowly adding and evolving to IMS.”

The NCG contains the HSS, CSCF and BCGF functions specified by IMS, but because they are modules of the system, they can be moved out of the NCG as providers move to a full IMS deployment, says Fretter. “Phase 0 services can be deployed at a lower cost. When a provider reaches critical mass, they can deploy the framework,” he says.

if it only had a brain ...

IMS CALLS FOR AN UNPRECEDENTED DEGREE OF INTEROPERABILITY AND MODULARITY among network functions. While this conceivably could be provided by one vendor, IMS’ authors had the bright idea to take advantage of best-of-breed developments in each area. The IMS model is ripped from the pages of the computing industry. So, it’s no surprise two of the larger IT vendors are jumping on the IMS bandwagon with hardware, software, systems integration and, above all, a partner ecosystem in support of the emerging framework.

“Traditionally, IBM has not been a core player in the telecom network in the traditional PSTN world,” says Vanitha Narayanan, director of telecommunications solutions and partner management for IBM Corp. “When you look at the IMS world, there are a few things that make it an extremely relevant space for us to drive value and add value.”

One of those, she says, is the ability to use standard IT technologies — with or without modifications — in driving telco capabilities. For this purpose IBM is offering up its BladeCenter, which is produced in the millions as opposed to thousands for most telco blades. At SUPERCOMM, IBM demonstrated BladeCenter as part of the IMS services and control layers — the latter being a first for the company, which debuted its integrated IMS services at 3GSM earlier this year.

“The value of IMS is being able to integrate value from multiple suppliers and being able to maintain that flexibility,” Narayanan says. IBM is assembling a network of partners in support of IMS. At SUPERCOMM, the company included a handful of the 800 vendors in its Partner World Telecommunications Industry Network in multimedia demos. These included AudioCodes, BayPackets Inc., Brooktrout Technology, Leapstone Systems, Nex- Tone Communications, Qualphone, Terraplay Systems and Ubiquity Software.

Sun Microsystems Inc. also announced at SUPERCOMM the launch of its Open Service Delivery Platform (OSDP) Solutions Program. The “OSDP program brings together partners as an ecosystem,” says Bill Gough, Sun’s telecom industry manager. “It’s not a product, but a collection of technologies that allow operators to build out services easier leveraging AAA, user profiles and other common elements.”

Among the initial partners are Appium, Drutt, EDS, jNetx, Open Cloud and Terraplay. At SUPERCOMM, Appium, Drutt and Terraplay demonstrated a mobile gaming/conferencing application.

Sun has created a multilayer OSDP architecture that is end-to-end Java and can take advantage of the carrier-grade Solaris operating system. Sun also will offer by the end of the year its Netra ATCA-blade platform. Gough says it provides two to three times the density of traditional telco solutions, which translates to lower cost of ownership and simplified integration. At SUPERCOMM, NTT COMWARE demonstrated its SIP Application Server running on the Netra platform.

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