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Carrier Services
VON Fall 2006: ROI from IMS Remains Unclear, Says Survey
Most Operators Deploying IMS to Reduce Opex
by Iain Morris
The vast majority of operators planning to invest in IMS have
no idea whether it promises a return on investment, according
to a survey conducted by infrastructure vendor Apertio.
While 38 percent of survey respondents were expecting some
kind of return over a two-year period following IMS
deployment, the rest had not carried out any ROI calculations
whatsoever.
Speaking on the "In Search of IMS Success Stories" panel hosted by Infonetics and Telecommunications Magazine at this week's Fall VON 2006 conference in Boston, Richard Hallet, director of product management with Apertio, said that ROI represented something of a ’grey area’ in Apertio’s research.
Apertio questioned 57 C-level executives late last year on a
variety of topics relating to the use of IMS. As many as 77
percent said they were planning to deploy IMS over the next
two years, with the strategic priority for most being a reduction
in operating costs. The majority, said Hallett, were looking for
long-term savings of 10.5 percent.
The survey also revealed that many executives were confused
regarding the implementation of IMS. Although most of the
respondents expected to roll out IMS over a period of 12-18
months, they were unsure whether some applications could be
introduced before a service architecture was fully in place.
"What this shows is that the road to IMS is not yet clear," said
Hallet.
Video streaming and FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) were rated as
the most popular applications in the survey.
That finding is supported by experience to date, according to
Nicolas Mercouroff, vice president of fixed-mobile convergence
with Alcatel. Speaking on the same panel, Mercouroff said
that IMS solutions focused on these applications were already
enjoying considerable success in the marketplace.
In the UK, said Mercouroff, incumbnet operator BT has been
running a business service called Enterprise FMC for Mobile
Workers that allows seamless handover between WiFi and
GSM networks, facilitated by IMS technology.
What’s more, he explained, BT is successfully using IMS in
the voice-over-broadband consumer market to differentiate
itself from innovators like Skype. "Broadband Talk is the
largest SIP network in terms of traffic in the world," said
Mercouroff.
In the future, Mercouroff expects to see IMS translate into
even more popular convergence applications. "It will improve
triple play," he said. "You could be watching TV at home and
receive a phone call that brings up a caller ID on the screen.
You could then decide whether to divert that call to your home
phone or your mobile."
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