garymgx's blog

Web Services Catching on in Telecom?

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:42:54 +0000

OK, so Web Services has been around for some time now. XML and SOAP have been used as an easy to implement mechanism to serve as an API for distributed applications. However, only until the last year or so has web services come to the forefront of telecom services, and I believe it will be used as a foundation for many innovative solutions that will be built under the Unified Communications/Integrated Communications umbrella.

VoIP has traditionally been relegated to basic telephony services in the telecom industry, such as VoIP/SIP Trunking and Hosted IP Telephony services. However, with the advent of Unified Communications (check out the Unified Communications Conference at the Fall VON Show in October), which brings together telephony, messaging, collaboration, data and mobility into an integrated solution, we begin to see services using VoIP as becoming more visual in nature, bringing telephony into web interfaces rather than to phones, and using multiple distributed applications which are blended to create solutions.

Global Crossing has announced that it is providing innovative Unified Communications solutions to the UK Government. These services will soon be expanded to provide even greater capabilities to the Enterprise, and globalization is a key element of this strategy.

Does this mean IMS? Not necessarily. Many solutions in the market have built interoperability through vendor partnerships using SIP from a voice signaling perspective, and Web Services brings another element into the mix which greatly improves interoperability and improves usability. IMS is not nearly as innovative as Web Services, and certainly not as easily implemented. However, IMS can be combined with Web Services to anchor control, signaling, and provisioning of multiple applications in a standardized fashion. My belief is that it will take the industry some time to pull everything together using IMS.

As an example of how web services can be introduced into telephony, clients can be built into web pages using internet API's which use click to call functionality. In addition, web services can be used in a unified communications "Dashboard" interface where a user can view presence status, conference attendance, manage services through voice portals, and trigger entirely new communications business models. Two innovating vendors highly leveraging web services in the telecom space are Sylantro and Iperia, which bring call control and management extended to web communications, and provide visual voicemail and unified messaging services as a solution. Very cool stuff.

Web Services brings easy programming interfaces to industry standard transport (HTTP) to bring innovation to telecom services. As enterprises become more distributed in nature, with remote offices in multiple countries, their key workers are also becoming more distributed and mobile. Telecom needs to keep up with these trends and the increading demand for requirements of the changing workplace with real time communications. This is bringing traditionally separate applications together via Unified Communications, and the "unification" or blending of these distributed applications can use a combination of signaling techniques and web services functions to bring a highly visual element to the solution.

I Approve This Message

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:59:34 +0000

Mesaging is undoubtedly the fasted growing method of e-communication in the industry today, spanning both consumer and enterprise segments. In the wireless industry alone, the statistics on text messaging volume are staggering. CTIA's president Steve Largent was quoted as saying that 158 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. alone in 2006, translating to approximately 300,000 per minute, which is almost a 100% growth compared to 2005. He also notes that consumers can use text messaging to save lives. Huh? Well, Amber Alerts is now wireless, so you can receive text message with the Amber Alert information (that is displayed on digital signage) when one occurs, provided you submit your mobile phone number and area zip codes. BTW, I encourage everyone to sign up for this. The reason? We all look at a text message when we receive one, and most of the time we respond to it. This is a very viral form of communication, and an extremely high margin service; up to 85% in some cases. Combine this with Instant Messaging, and the transactional volumes far exceed voice by a huge margin.

Aside of the convenience and trendiness aspects of SMS, texting is also very cost effective. When users are low on their cell phone minutes, they often resort to sending text. Also, due to excessive roaming costs, sending text messages is a way of avoiding expensive voice roaming and ILD rates from the mobile operators.

Identity-based services are a unique way to bridge communications between the wireless and wireline worlds. Many innovative service providers are creating offerings which provide a single number (or second line) to the external community, but which allow the subscriber to manage inbound calling to various destinations (mobile, home phone, work phone, etc.). GrandCentral and TalkPlus are two such providers of this service. This identity is can be enabled through a VoIP DID-based carrier such as Global Crossing, which provides phone numbers and voice origination and termination capabilities. Unique solutions like this are rapidly growing in the industry and are likely to continue, bringing voice beyond basic peer to peer dialing.

Another innovative use of identity based services is one where the purpose is to hide the true identity of the called party. Jangl provides such an application to Match.com which enables dating prospects to communicate with each other without having to know each other's phone number. Obviously, you don't want to advertise your phone number to what seems to be a decent date but who turns out to be an obsessive nut job. Again, a powerful use of application-based communication.

Applications such as this can leverage more than just voice. Text messaging can also be applied just as easy (if not easier) to these identity services, which opens up a powerful enabler and revenue opportunity. In fact, most users with a mobile phone expect SMS to be a supplementary service, even when using a service such as one of those above.

Text messaging has, and will continue to be a key communication service requirement coupled with voice. Wireline has some catching up to do, but you can expect some very innovative additions to enable messaging services to continue to be an essential component of the converged services equation. Expect more from Global Crossing. Stay tuned.....

Mobile Ads Are On The Horizon

Thu, 17 May 2007 22:21:25 +0000

In this day, we are all hit by a constant barrage of advertisements. From the web, email, TV, magazines, radio, internet radio, news videos, and movie theatres we now have an expectaion of an advertising flash suspending our immediate gratification, and have built a subliminal blockade to the best of our ability to focus on the content we seek. I recall the day when I was able to watch a DVD without being forced to fumble through 5 movie previews (I've noticed that Disney is the most aggressive). So when I saw the AT&T comment on the Washington Post regarding the revenue opportunity of mobile advertisements, and the operator's strategy to realize it I can’t say that I’m surprised. After all, unless you have been living in a cave for the past few years, mobile phones are already becoming an Internet utility device for many users.
We’ve already seen some mobile web banners in their early stages by ESPN’s WAP site. However, mobile Internet is still a bit expensive at this point to open up any real opportunity. The Mobile Internet is still primarily used for targeted information searches, based upon 3rd party research rather than simply perusing about.

United States Top Mobile Web Domains: March 2007			United Kingdom Top Mobile Web Domains: March 2007
Rank	Domain	Audience	Domain	Audience
1	google.com	1,894,143	google.co.uk	348,873
2	yahoo.com	1,315,801	bbc.co.uk	298,016
3	msn.com	903,158	orange.co.uk	215,353
4	microsoft.com	734,664	three.co.uk	210,286
5	live.com	697,589	o2.co.uk	202,373
6	go.com	571,469	google.com	148,722
7	cnn.com	509,772	t-mobile-favourites.co.uk	108,463
8	weather.com	460,564	ebay.co.uk	106,386
9	myspace.com	435,910	msn.com	93,386
10	passport.net	434,050	yahoo.com	89,668

Source: M:Metrics. Reports for the month of March are projected to represent the universe of smartphone owners and are based on in-tab panel sizes of approximately 500 panelists in the United States and 600 panelists in the United Kingdom.

Many enterprises are examining opportunities to realize revenue in the mobile space, but are in the formative stages of their research. Looking at mobile phones beyond voice, and even beyond multi-modal communication such as FMC is a critical element to the formulation of a broad business strategy. In the next few years, you will probably see popup blockers on mobile web browsers!

Where are the FMC Phones?

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:48:43 +0000

It's apparent that in order for FMC to really take off, there needs to exist a reasonable variety of handsets that provide the functionality and user experience that we've all come to know and love. Just because your phone is one of those expensive dual mode Windows Mobile jobbers doesn't mean that it is capable of "seamless mobility". In fact, when the OEM first integrated WiFi on these smartphones, they were never intended to use VoIP over WiFi. Sure, they dabble with Mobile Skype and PCTel
has announced recently that they will begin outsourcing in earnest VCC-compliant WiFi-Cellular handoff client software but for the most part, WiFi is mostly relegated to faster web browsing.

However, a good FMC client software is only as good as the handset itself. I've experienced numerous stability problems with the WM5 OS. I'm fairly confident that I'm preaching to the choir on this one. I've performed the traditional "windows two-step"; rebooting the phone often to resolve unknown glitches and freezing. Aside from rebooting the phone, the battery life of these phones in WiFi mode is horrible. 2-4 hours from a full charge renders the phone practically useless. After all, if one is to experience seamless roaming between WiFi and Cellular, one would need to leave the WiFi radio on, wouldn't they? I personally do not want to obsessively spend my time checking the battery status on the phone and sprinting to the nearest outlet.

These two basic aspects of the phone need to be overcome prior to FMC (from a VCC perspective) becoming palatable to the broad user-base. In order to move past novelty to usability Microsoft and the OEM's need to listen up! WiFi chipsets are rapidly coming down in price, which is moving the handsets from the $400 range to the $300 range, but the OEM needs to work on an integration of this radio into the phone that is optimal for VoIP over WiFi.

With any hope, Nokia will help accelerate the usability of dual mode capabilities, but it still seems that we are another year from experiencing panacea with WiFi-Cellular convergence.

FMC Test Findings - Lifting the Hood on an FMC-IMS Trial

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:18:12 +0000

Previously I made a post on the elements of trial and evaluating next gen platforms and applications, such as IMS and Fixed Mobile Convergence. We have been trialing both for quite a few months now. And, while I'm not allowed to mention vendors or alot of the details, I can tell you that the lab testing produced many results which are not often, if at all disclosed by other network operators. Many carriers will only mention the fact that they have trialed these technologies, but never reveal the results, or mention the scope of the testing that they conduct. While it is important to preserve the clandestine nature of product planning so as not to reveal strategies to our fellow carrier competition, I think that the nature of blogging serves an optimal avenue to provide a format for open dialogue to improve industry communication. So, in the spirit of the blog, following are some of the high-level findings of our testing.

Testing Objectives

The lab trial was categorized as a Technical Proof of Concept (TPOC) to examine a limited subset of features which are executed to replicate and evaluate the customer experience of the technology and to scope the required integration effort of network interfaces in a number of service domains, across multiple vendor equipment. The trial environment utilized a number of elements to provide a complete network and service environment which follow:

IMS Core - CSCF, ENUM, HSS, BGCF
VoIP Core for PSTN Breakout - Softswitch, VoIP Gateway, SS7 Gateway
Session Border Controller - Border gateway functions
Hosted Telephony - Provide network-centric IP PBX functions such as extension dialing, etc.
IP PBX - Provide FMC interface to enterprise-hosted IP PBX functions
FMC Application - Otherwise known as the VCC Application in 3GPP
WiFi AP - Providing the WLAN environment
Dual Mode Phone - A Windows Mobile phone with integrated WiFi and GSM radios

There were a number of tests performed, which spanned technical interoperability, application usability, and basic functions such as call completion in multiple access networks, origination and termination, etc...

Through testing we observed a number of things

Fixed Mobile Convergence is real - The perception of “vaporware” no longer holds true of converged applications integrating both fixed and mobile access networks. These services primarily comprise a voice element which allows the user to transition calls between different phone types (desk or mobile), or different access networks (IP, PSTN or Cellular), extend PBX features to the mobile domain or even merge the identity of the desk phone and the mobile phone. These features work, and have the potential to provide unique productvity and cost advantages to Enterprise users.

True IMS value is difficult to capture in limited trials – The Proof of Concept used IMS to provide session control, and invoke applications in the trial. This proved useful when combining a hosted telephony application with the Fixed Mobile Convergence application, because it is a relatively straightforward process to configure IMS to control when to invoke each application, and in what order to provide a complete service. There are a number of other benefits associated with the IMS architecture which were not evaluated in the trial. These include such things as consolidated billing, subscriber management, and interface standardization which in principle facilitates application integration.

Interoperability is still an issue – During the integration of the IMS system and the core VoIP system a number of SIP interoperability problems were identified. While IMS seeks to define standardized interfaces between network elements it was found that many interoperability problems lie deep in the SIP protocol, beyond where the standards are defined.

IMS was found to be highly complex – Implementing services over an IMS architecture creates complex call flows. This is widely known in the industry. A number of transactions are involved in order for even basic calls to complete. Add in 2 or more applications, which have a B2BUA function and this gets to be messy from an operational perspective. The IMS core implements a number of SIP elements that are involved in the call as it is processed in the network. As a result, supporting these call flows becomes difficult, particularly if there are problems. Some of the call flows took up to 12 hops before call completion in the IP domain.

FMC feature integration with enterprise PBX is a non-trivial process – It was found that configuring FMC functionality interfacing with an IP PBX (ie: handing off mobile calls to IP phones, using single voicemail, sim ring etc.) is not trivial. It took weeks to enable FMC features with our in-house IP PBX. There are a number of configuration steps required to enable these features, clear documentation and step by step instructions are critical to support a commercial implementation.

Phone battery life suffers in WiFi mode – With WiFi enabled and used consistently, we experienced battery life of approximately 4 hours. For most users this will be unacceptable. Implemention of power saving modes in the WiFi settings will help battery life in a normal user operating environment, however, the phone battery life using WiFi will not approach existing call times experienced in today’s phones for a number of years.

Once configured, features are stable and function consistently – Once the configurations were stabilized, the features were found to work consistently and reliably.

There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this experience. Yes, it is here, and yes it works. The primary issue that many carriers are struggling with right now comes down to quality of experience (ie: the device ready for prime time?), and the complexity associated with managing and supporting a complex mixture of wireless and wireline technologies for end users.

The applications may be ready for the network, but the more relevant question here may be....is the network ready for the application?

IMS Lite - Is IMS on a Diet Less Filling?

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:08:56 +0000

There has been a great deal of discussion this year questioning the value of IMS in carrier implementations. This is primarily due to the perception (rightfully so) that IMS has network integration implications, is heavy on signaling, operationally complex, and in summary too complex. These issues lead to cost in so many ways, which we will get to in a moment.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that IMS is necessarily a bad thing. However, I have been hearing some discussion about "trimming the fat" associated with the IMS standard, and diverging from many of the traditional vendor implementations.

A majority in the industry agrees that the standard is complex. As such the vendor stands to gain in many ways from selling hardware, testing, integrating into the back office, and deriving revenue from adding applications, not to mention port charges and session-based billing. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I get the feeling that IMS is starting to put the power of the network in the hands of the vendor moreso than the operator.

What is IMS lite? This new approach essentially allows the operator to take the piece parts of the standard which provide the most value, and implement them in a way that maximizes value and streamlines network efficiency. This differs dramatically from the 3GPP standard which details interactions between the network elements in order for the most basic call flows to function. And while there are disagreements on the specifics within the standard, the basic principle and documentation have a great deal of merit. The main thing here is that what works for one carrier may not work for another. Not all carriers are implementing the same services nor do they have the same network environment. Mobile operators may have a great reason for implementing the full IMS standard for their own reasons, but the wireline operator follows an entirely line, from services to architecture.

An example of an IMS Lite implementation would be breaking down the P-I-S-CSCF into a single call state machine (a Soft CSCF) which provides the essential registration, authorization, service invocation and filtering functions and acts as the application proxy on the northbound interface and interacts with an HSS which manages subscriber profiles. These functions account for the majority of benefit from IMS anyways, so why not save some headache, not to mention a bundle of $$$$? The 3GPP standards provide a great deal of value in the principles not the details of the architectural functions of how integrated IP services can be invoked and managed. My vote is that these be used to the advantage of the service provider to take advantage of IMS without all of the associated cost.

I will be speaking on IMS Lite at the IMS Services Forum next week in London. For those responsible with network and product strategy, this event shouldn't be missed.

This is a great time for thinking out of the box in terms of defining the next generation network strategy. Out of complexity comes opportunity and in this business the stakes are increasingly high. Perhaps IMS can taste great while being less filling!

FMC Trial Speak

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:52:08 +0000

There are a slew of carrier lab trials currently underway in the industry. Many of the press releases that have been announced seem to ring of a "Me Too" in the marketplace, primarily associated with IMS and FMC (mostly together). I have spoken to many of the leading vendors both in IMS and Fixed Mobile services platforms, and many of the major carriers; both wireline and wireless alike have to some extent conducted lab trials to get their feet wet with this technology, and I can tell you that Global Crossing is no exception.

So, what does a lab trial consist of?

I happen to lead some R&D initiatives in the labs here at Global Crossing, both in IMS and in Fixed Mobile Convergence. I would like to provide some insight into what I believe makes lab trials valuable, and why turning up the heat in the lab kitchen to brew up a fine service concoction without getting burnt (but singing hairs is sometimes necessary) is a great thing, provided specific objectives are set and the end goal is reachable.

There are a couple types of lab trials associated with next generation technologies; one is concerned with addressing technical interoperability (can my vendors talk the same language, is one from Mississippi and one from New York? Or Germany and Japan?), and the other is associated with service usability. The most valuable lab trial is one that addresses both.

In the case of FMC and IMS, it is known that both can function together to deliver a service. The global questions that arise are: Does IMS add value to FMC? Is it necessary to deploy IMS in order for FMC to function? How does the solution fit together? What are the operational complexities involved?

Trials consume many resources. In the scope of an FMC over IMS solution, the resources can involve both capital costs for hardware, operational costs for systems integration, and resources involved with configuration and testing. These trials should not be taken lightly, and should be ultimately focused on maximizing the value of the solution in a commercial, or potentially commercial context.

As such, specific objectives that should be addressed with any trial are the testing outputs that can derive both a quantitative and qualitative result. The quantitative results can be primarily drawn from the number of tests cases executed, the successful (pass) test cases, % completion, the time taken to complete the tests, what was the percentage of trial participant feedback, and what quantitative criteria determines that the testing objectives have been met. The flip side is the qualitative measurements which should be considered just as valuable, if not more valuable than the quantitative results. Qualitative measurements should be designed to reflect the usability of the service tested. What is the feedback of the user of the service? What was the overall quality of the user experience? Were specific features considered more valuable than others, and what is the priority of one feature over the other?

Ultimately, a well conceived trial should bring together elements of technical evaluation, and the usability of a commercial service. One ensures that the solution will work under production network conditions, the features function per specification, and is scalable. The results of the trial should determine if a solution has commercial viability, the elements and features that should comprise the solution and how the solution can be designed/developed to maximize the long term value to the company. If the trial is developed with these objectives in mind, then it is much easier to justify the value of R&D initiatives which validate the usefulness of the services from the customer perspective.

The Progression of the B2BUA for IP Services

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:07:46 +0000

Well, I'm back after a few-week hiatus on the blog circuit....thanks for your patience! I'll be more diligent about posting content on a regular basis moving forward. This time I wanted to talk a bit about advanced services implementations.

The SIP Back to Back User Agent is rapidly becoming the utility device for real time IP Services. The most common implementation of the B2BUA is to act as a Session Border Controller to secure the edge of the network for VoIP peering. And while the SBC is a fundamental necessisity for carrier class VoIP services, very soon service providers will have implemented the B2BUA for specialty services; acting as "intelligent" boxes which can provide a variety of functions not simply relegated to protecting the border.

At the IMS Evolution Summit in June, I spoke at a panel on IMS architecture integration. Stephane Teral, an IMS analyst from the Infonetics posed the question about the increasing role of the SBC in IP services.

This is a particularly interesting topic in the context of IP services. In many cases, the B2BUA can be implemented as a SIP application proxy, say for example in a hosted centrex deployment. In this role, voice services are triggered to an application server such as a Sylantro or Broadsoft, where various features are applied to the call, and the call is then sent to either the destination endpoint, or to a media server for IVR functionality, etc.

The most recent implementation of B2BUA functionality is in an FMC application. The 3GPP Voice Call Continuity Standard (VCC), which standardizes the active transition of a call between WiFi IP networks and Circuit Switched Cellular networks utilizes a B2BUA functionality to anchor a voice call on the egress call leg so that the ingress call leg can transition between IP and Cellular call states.

Further, B2BUA's can be daisy-chained together in a single call flow to apply specific treatment to the call. For example, in an IMS-based FMC implementation, an SBC would be invoked to provide security at the edge of the service provider network (for a WiFi/SIP call). The next leg of the call would be an IMS trigger to forward the call to the FMC application server to anchor the voice session, next there could be yet another IMS trigger to forward the call to a hosted centrex application server to provide PBX treatment. This is an example of a feature-rich call flow that utilizes multiple call legs using B2BUA functionality.

The plus side is that the B2BUA can enable a rich set of features and call treatment for modern IP services. The negative side is that implementing these multiple call segments for a single voice service can be extremely complex from an operational perspective, as these flows take multiple paths as features are applied, and session logging and problem identification can be difficult. However, the Net-Net is that the B2BUA will become increasingly more important as the next generation of service offerings takes shape.

FMC Competition in the UK

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:15:54 +0000

Not sure if you've seen the press release yesterday on silicon.com regarding Orange's dive into converged services. The release of the Business Everywhere application essentially is a tip-toe into FMC, by bundling mobile data services, and converged voice and data using integrated billing and a client software which improves the data services experience over 3G, 2.5G EDGE and WiFi networks.

I spoke with Jason Ellis; Orange's Head of Convergence about their plans at the IMS World Forum, and he noted that Orange is specifically competing with BT's Fusion service in the UK, where the service is initially launched. BT needs a swift kick in the backside on the competitive side in this space, and I will personally enjoy the mud slinging on both sides for converged services. Orange has had some challenges with the politics of combining the operations and networks of France Telecom, Equant, Orange Wireless, and Wanadoo and it will be interesting to see how this plays out on the product development side.

The interesting thing to note about the release is the relative caution being noted by Jason Ellis about the lack of seamless management on the network side, and the lack of QoS with their VoIP offering. What? Is this a Vonage for the Enterprise? Sprint ION? Whoa...this is surprising.

My perspective is that launching a business service without providing the requisite QoS is dangerous...However, from an enterprise FMC perspective it will be difficult to tackle WiFi QoS in the near term to ensure voice quality from WiFi handsets and such. However, mobile users are accustomed to crummy voice quality anyhow. How bad could WiFi VoIP be? Well, I guess this depends on how bad the Enterprise network is engineered. I will be interested to hear some customer feedback as FMC services pick up customers.

IMS Implementation - How to do it right

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 17:05:55 +0000

There are a number of carrier considerations for deploying IMS, not the least of which is HOW to deploy it. Once the carrier has satisfied the business justification for deploying this technology (or not, in which case the carrier has money to burn for the sake of a press release), the question is HOW to deploy it:

1.) Cost Effectively - Getting the "Bang for the Buck" so to speak
2.) Targeting your Core Services - Filling the void you were trying to address with IMS in the first place
3.) How to Migrate - Both subscribers as well as services

Some folks would say that you are not "IMS Compliant" unless you deploy every IMS element, and adhere to every protocol specification in 3GPP.

This simply does not make practical sense. IMS should be specific to the carrier deploying it. From an interop perspective, I do see importance in ensuring the vendor follows the standards. However, the point is that you are building a platform for deploying innovative services, not a platform to test vendor compliance. That being said, I make the following suggestions to the industry.

1.) To get the bang for your buck you need to re-use existing elements in your network. This will help in the migration piece as well. Many elements that carriers have in their existing VoIP platform should be upgradeable to the IMS standard. For example, a Softswitch and an SS7 Gateway should be able to handle BGCF/MGCF functions.

2.) Look to the future when deploying your new network. You should be planning for your next 3-4 years of services and ensuring that your IMS platform is extensible from a services roadmap perspective. Ensure that you can add elements easily, such as a service broker to enhance session management capabilities to combine and blend services to create innovative solutions for your customers.

3.) You don't need, nor should you migrate every service to IMS. Existing call flows may function just fine, and scale even better in your "legacy" environment. Don't rush to transform everything, just the services that IMS improves, such as the rich, interactive, high-touch services that require heavy session control.

The point is to look outside of the box when examining the services that will lead the "Next Generation Network". Which generation are we in anyways?

To IMS or Not to IMS, WHEN is the question!

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:34:14 +0000

I have been speaking on the subject of IMS from the carrier perspective for better than a year now, speaking at a number of conferences, the next one being the IMS Evolution Summit in San Diego on June 27th. While there are many proponents of IMS, many of these are vendors who have spent huge sums of money developing everything from core IMS elements, such as the Call Session Control Function (CSCF) and the Home Subscriber Server (HSS). Many carriers are also proponents of the solution, who are tasked with "upgrading" their next generation IP services platform to capture the largest customer base from all of the access networks that one could imagine (Cellular, Mobile IP, DSL, Ethernet, you name it, etc...). However, is IMS the only future-proof upgrade?

There exist options besides IMS in deploying SIP-based application services. This can be accomplished by managing SIP sessions at the edge or the core of the network via existing softswitches, and directing traffic to the appropriate SIP application. Many carriers have this in place today and it works just fine. Moreover, sessions can ingress the network from IP endpoints or the PSTN, using Media Gateways which border PSTN switches.

However, the services framework associated with the IMS specifications captures much more than access to a single SIP application. Written into the specification are mechanisms to manage the interaction of multiple SIP applications to provide combined/blended services, commonly referred to as service brokering. Now what is a blended service you ask? A blended service is one that offers a rich and seamless user experience when provided by applications which can/traditionally function by themselves. For example, a use case scenario could be one where Adam is placing a call to Dave at work. The Service Broker/SCIM takes the INVITE message and sends it to a simultaneous ring application. The sim ring application then places a call to the destination cell phone and work phone. The SCIM then queries a presence server to identify the state of the user (at home, at desk, on call, etc.). If Dave has his cell phone off, then there is no point in ringing it. Therefore, the call is efficiently delivered to the desk phone, and ultimately the work voicemail if there is no answer. Sure, this is the most simplistic example but nevertheless shows services value in the IMS architecture.

I will delve into more of the advantages and disadvantages in later posts.

Look, there are well over 50 carrier IMS contracts in place today Gartner reports 46 but I know of a few more, and the softswitch as we know it will soon be history, because many vendors are replacing, or have commited to replacing it with the CSCF....while there are disadvantages, both technically as well as in the expense of the hardware and deployment, the truth is that momentum carries industry change, and with it carries new opportunities in terms of partnerships and innovation.

My position here is to carefully deliberate the IP services roadmap, considering the use and transition of services to IMS, as well as cost effectively transforming existing elements to IMS. This will assist the carrier to evaluate not IF but WHEN to implement this technology into their network. My next post will discuss implementation considerations of IMS into existing networks.