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NewsGlobe: Currents
Back office steps up for IMS Forum
Plugfest to look at OSS-BSS and billing issues for converged applications
by Jim Barthold
The IMS Forum’s next interoperability plugfest will step inside
the inner workings of a telecommunications operation,
looking at what keeps the whole business humming and the
bills paid, especially as carriers begin to converge fixed and
mobile technologies and applications.
“We’re looking at the infrastructure process. If we cannot bill
this properly, cannot measure the billing center and data, this
product is not going to make money,” said Michael Khalilian,
chairman and president of the IMS Forum.
The plugfest, planned for Feb. 25-29 at the IMS Forum’s labs
at the University of New Hampshire, will continue to focus on
the platform that’s needed to effectively deliver a package of
fixed and mobile services using IP Multimedia Subsystem
protocols.
The Forum’s purpose has been to make sure that all the
pieces work together to deliver a converged experience.
“All the softswitching and proxy servers and SIP servers and
components that you need for the voice-over-IP process now
can be used to take it to the next step with the voice carriers
from the wireless side with other features and functions,”
Khalilian said.
IMS, he said, is the “octopus in the center” of all the
converged activity.
“IMS is not a technology; IMS is a framework. It started from
the wireless side to put more content over the wireless
network and it took a life of its own,” he said. “If you listen to
everybody’s pitch … you’re hearing that they want to offer
more applications, more traditional services, new services and
future applications. That’s why you’re getting more acceptance
from all the service providers for the IMS framework. They’re
all trying to figure how they’re going to utilize their past
investments and enhance what they need to grab market
share.”
The IMS Forum, he said, brings together two sides of the
equation: the application and the transport and “making sure
all of them interoperate.”
The Forum’s work covers the gamut of both applications and
technology. for example femtocells, important technology
pieces needed to drive more broadband applications onto
mobnle networks, were in the center ring.
The femtocell, Khalilian said, is a logical component in the
IMS puzzle.
“It gives you the capability for broadband over your mobile
and then through FMC, to do voice-over-IP and your mobile
work together and be smart enough to shift,” he said. “We
were among probably the first organizations in the industry to
do the IMS and femtocells together.”
Now the organization is turning its attention to where
applications and technology are born: the back office.
“Our ideas are focused ON THE platform and this is the first
time anyone in the industry is looking at the IMS OSS-BSS
part,” said Khalilian. “I always tell people that there is an
answer and solution for every technology issue; now let’s talk
about the business plan and ROI. That’s what’s driving
technology, not the other way around.”
A functional, interoperating back office is essential to that
philosophy, so the forum is “shifting from more the
applications and networks and putting a focus on OSS and
BSS,” he concluded.
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