IMS, NGN forums team for ‘any to any’ communications

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Forum and the Next Generation Networks (NGN) Forum announced plans to merge their respective activities in an effort to better target “multimedia, mobility and fixed services over broadband cable, wireless, wireline and fiber networks,” according to the group.
“This partnership enables our members to fully address the emergence of a single market comprised of information technology, telecommunications and media sectors that formerly operated in separate markets,” said Michael Khalilian, chief of the new IMS/NGN Forum.
According to a research note from Jeff Ogle at Current Analysis, the IMS Forum tended to include more of the smaller and emerging vendors, while the NGN Forum counted a broad spectrum of members. The combined organization now includes 2,000 executives and technical and marketing professionals across equipment vendors, service providers, system integrators and the government, according to Ogle.
Now, though, the newly combined IMS/NGN Forum will stand against a number of other organizations that are playing in similar fields, including the TM forum, the SIP Forum, the IP/MPLS Forum and the MultiService Forum, according to Ogle.
“The IMS/NGN Forum’s charter is broad in scope (basically ‘any to any’ over IP) and as such covers the whole gambit of quadruple play, revenue-generating services and applications,” Ogle wrote. “This provides the forum with the latitude to address current issues while keeping a constant eye on the future for new applications or services. Other alliances such as the IP/MPLS Forum and the MEF have charters that are myopic in scope, in that they are targeting a more specific solution to a current networking issue, generally between rival vendors.”
However, Ogle warned that the new IMS/NGN Forum needs to work to increase its membership and its relevance by boosting its testing and certification work and partnering with other, related technical bodies.