IMS News For The Week Ending 4 August

Mae's on a well-deserved vacation, so since I've returned from a poorly-deserved vacation I'll do some real work for a change and round up the IMS news for the week:

A recent report by Dell' (News - Alert)Oro Group shows that sales of softswitches and media gateways are forecasted to double from $2.5 billion in 2005 to $5.0 billion in 2010. Dell'Oro Group predicts that Class 5 subscriber solutions will drive growth in the future as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services gain popularity among both consumers and businesses.

Steve Raab, Director of IP Telephony research at Dell'Oro Group thinks that initial IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert) (IMS) networks "will follow a similar overlay strategy enabling Service Providers to offer fixed-mobile-convergence and multimedia services rapidly, while carriers defer the complete network transformation from circuit switches to a fully VoIP network to future years."

And despite widespread views to the contrary, "enterprise businesses will likely become a hot market for IP Multimedia Subsystem services," reports In-Stat. IMS has the potential to generate more than $15 billion annually by 2010 for U.S. carriers, the high-tech market research firm says.

"IMS provides enterprises with the means of accommodating secure data transmittal and communication between remote workers, outsourced third-party vendors and trusted corporate partners," said Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. "Carriers can use IMS-based network applications and services to become more than just suppliers of enterprise transport facilities."

Convergin, a vendor of fixed mobile convergence and service interaction solutions, has announced its Accolade convergence SCIM (Service Capabilities Interaction Management) platform "now provides new functionality for wireline carriers with networks that contain both legacy and next generation equipment."

The Accolade's new capabilities allow connectivity of softswitches and IMS Call Session Control Functions (CSCF), with existing legacy services.

These new features represent "an important milestone in evolving service provider networks to IMS," company officials think, and in "removing the borders between fixed and mobile networks." Among the typical legacy services that can now be extended towards IMS include Toll Free Calls; Local Number Portability; Calling Name Data Base; and Information Data Base.

According to Isle Of Man Today -- you just haven't hit your bookmark yet this morning, I know-- the "next generation network being installed by Manx Telecom could have big advantages for the Island's business community according to Lucent Technologies."

Manx Telecom signed a £30 million deal with Lucent to replace its entire fixed line and core mobile telephone networks with a new next generation network, the paper reports.

John Verdon, director of communications at Lucent, told the paper that "many businessman currently carry a laptop, blackberry and mobile phone when traveling. It's very cumbersome to have a different power pack for each device. With the IMS technology one device could be used for all those purposes. It recognizes all applications and has much greater bandwidth capacity."

David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims’ columnist page.

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