Marking its first commitment to Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem technology, Verizon Wireless, joined by a handful of network infrastructure heavy-hitters, unveiled Advances to IMS, or A-IMS, a concept document along with an architecture overview aimed at jump-starting standards development of IMS technology for wireless networks.
Dick Lynch, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Verizon Wireless, said the carrier spearheaded the task force made up of “the best and the brightest” technology gurus from Cisco Systems Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc., Motorola Inc., Nortel Networks Ltd. and Qualcomm Inc.
Lynch explained that although Verizon Wireless applauds the IMS standardization work done by the 3GPP2 and 3GPP, the task force realized as it discussed strategies to implement IMS that “there are some practical, real-world issues that need to be addressed if we are to transparently and completely deploy and maximize the use of this new architecture.”
Specifically, Lynch said the multi-vendor team collaborated to expand IMS architecture to support both current and next-generation networks, with SIP and non-SIP applications, whereas the current IMS standard doesn’t support non-SIP applications. The team’s aim is to enable carriers to deploy next-generation services in current networks, as well as to create a foundation to efficiently roll out both SIP- and non-SIP-based services in future networks.
Without A-IMS, Verizon Wireless said it would not be able to transition IPTV, Voice over Internet Protocol and video on demand to next-generation networks.
Andrew Seybold, industry analyst at Outlook4Mobility, pointed out that, “Adding A-IMS on top of IMS will help ensure better compatibility between networks and more operator flexibility in handling applications along with Quality of Service, accounting functions, mobility demands, security and packet flow optimization.”
“Regardless of how this will play out in the next couple of years, by supporting both SIP and non-SIP applications, A-IMS focuses on seamless service migration during the evolution of the core network architecture,” Ovum noted. “It represents a very good example of what could be expected from carriers wishing to move to VoIP using an IMS-compliant evolutionary path.”
Ovum’s Roger Entner predicted, “CDMA carriers are going to look at this very closely because they need more than just the plain vanilla IMS standard for their networks. But at this point, it’s up in the air as to what they’re going to do with it-they could embrace it wholeheartedly, partially or not at all.
“If Verizon is really serious about this, then they’ll have to convince others to give their input to make this a true industry standard. Right now, it’s just too early in the game. The worst outcome possible is that A-IMS is ignored by other carriers and vendors.”
Cingular Wireless L.L.C. responded to the A-IMS unveiling by reminding the industry that the carrier is already deploying IMS in its networks and feels that the issues addressed by A-IMS are already being dealt with either by 3GPP or operators themselves.
