|
Broadband Access
France Telecom Drools Over IMS
But Urges Vendors to Step Up Supply of Infrastructure and Terminals
by Ken Wieland
Alain Maloberti, vice president of network architecture and
design at the France Telecom Group, gave IMS a resounding
vote of confidence at the Broadband World Forum today.
In his keynote address, Maloberti said that IMS "turns the
concept of converged services [and a converged network] into
a reality as far as the control layer is concerned." He
added: “IMS is the most suitable solution for our IP network.”
Maloberti’s IMS enthusiasm, however, was not
unqualified. “We need [IMS-enabled] equipment and we
need terminals that have WiFi and IMS functionality
embedded within them,” he said. “We also need an end-to-
end standard for delivering mobile multimedia services
between terminals that are supplied from different
manufacturers. These things don’t exist yet.”
France Telecom is currently deciding who its IMS infrastructure
suppliers will be but Maloberti is in no doubt that IMS will be
the cornerstone of the French incumbent’s converged services
strategy. In mid-2005, France Telecom announced its NexT
initiative with target of achieving 5-10 percent of revenue
from new, converged services. Maloberti sees IMS as
essential to achieving that target.
“Already we have launched the ‘Unique’ service (see
related story, "Orange Offers ‘Unique’ Convergence"), which, although based in UMA, is a good
example of the type of converged fixed and mobile services
we can develop with IMS.”
Despite Maloberti’s backing of IMS, he was under no illusion
as to the scale of the task confronting the France Telecom
group. In every country that it has a network presence (over
200) it is aiming to implement a ‘converged’ network that can
control services over multiple access technologies.
“Convergence requires not only a massive network
transformation but an organisational one as well,” he
said. “Sales and marketing [from different business units]
need to come together and act as one and sell the same
range of services.”
At the beginning of 2006, France Telecom set up a ‘techno-
centre’, dedicated to developing new services that can be
deployed over the IMS architecture. And next year, Maloberti
says that France Telecom ‘will evolve VoIP using SIP’ as a
reflection of the standard’s growing momentum and the
growing number of terminals that are available on the market.
“In the future, we expect IMS to replace parts of the PSTN as
and when it is needed,” said Maloberti.
Maloberti didn’t give a timetable, however, as to when he
expected the PSTN replacement phase to begin.
|
