|
NewsGlobe: Today's News
NXTcomm: IMS Moves from Hype to Reality
Eighteen Companies Participate in Latest Plugfest
by Jim Barthold
Eighteen companies participated in a plugfest, deploying and
debugging a fully functional end-to-end IMS network running
multimedia applications such as instant messaging and IP
Centrex services recently.
But that’s not the big news, said
Manuel Vexler, chair of the IMS Forum Technical Working
Group which conducted a multi-vendor plugfest with and at the
University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-
IOL).
“What’s important for us is the number of plugfests we
execute a year,” said Vexler. “Were trying to move from three
a year this year to four a year next year. We want to
accelerate this process of introducing applications and
services to the market.”
IMS, a hot topic a couple years ago, has died down a bit
lately. (see Article Here:)
“We’re moving from that cycle where we move from hype and
marketing dollars to R&D dollars and R&D dollars don’t
generate the same amount of awareness,” Vexler
said. “Marketing comes first and then comes new technology.
I disagree with the process but I can’t change it.”
A New Mindset
The plugfests have changed the perception that IMS is both
onerous and confusing–a multi-headed standard on top of a
body of conflicting specifications.
“You take it to the labs and it’s simple,” he said. “We had
companies from all over the world. They started to work
together and three days later they have voice servers, short
messages going on, fixed-mobile convergence,” he
said. “We’re still trying to move convergence of different
broadband networks, fixed-mobile-cable, DSL-mobile, some
of the Wi-Fi-WiMAX. It’s more a hands-on approach, more of
an engineering approach: try, fix it, try again until you have it
right.”
There’s also definition of where IMS’ benefits will be first felt:
fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) for enterprise customers.
That means, he said, the interested carriers aren’t
approaching from a mobile perspective or a fixed
perspective, “They are coming from the enterprise sides of
their business, not necessarily the residential.”
|
