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Report in a Nutshell

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has moved from the realms of R&D labs and commercial trials into a limited number of commercial deployments. Skepticism pervades much of the industry regarding IMS. No doubt there are tremendous challenges, both technical and business, in deploying the IMS technology commercially. However, with each real-world commercial rollout, there is evidence that the promise of IMS will be realized and the business case of IMS is solid.

This report evaluates a variety of IMS based applications. It is aimed at operators who are engaged in or considering IMS deployment; service providers who are planning to use an IMS core network to provide services to subscribers; hardware, software, and solutions vendors of IMS and related technologies such as Service Delivery Platforms (SDP); industry analysts; consultants and others who are interested in IMS deployment and applications. IMS applications are evaluated on a world-wide basis with a case study perspective providing analysis and conclusions for each application deployed by network operators. Each application is defined and described, and real world commercial deployments are analyzed. Each application is categorized as follows:

• Tier 1 IMS Applications: These applications have strong drivers for initial IMS deployments
• Tier 2 IMS Applications: Appropriate for later stage IMS deployments or a supporting application, a support role for other IMS applications

Commercial deployments of the following IMS applications are cited:

• Fixed Mobile Convergence
• Presence
• Rich Calls (also known as Video Share)
• Push to X (also known as Push to Talk, POC, P2T)
• IPTV Interactions
• Consumer and Business VoIP

Key Questions Answered

• The benefits of IMS in terms of speed and flexibility in deploying innovative new services, as well as controlling operational costs are important to operators, especially relative to the increasing competition from “over the top” and unbundled service providers. IMS will be the technology that can blend multiple network services for subscribers.
• Many of the technical challenges of deploying IMS, however numerous and onerous, are solvable problems over time. The “Walled Garden” problem of IMS threatens to limit the value of IMS in the long term, but it is not a problem for the short term. It is a problem that the industry must address.
• Certain IMS applications will act as leading services drivers justifying deployment of IMS while others provide merely an important supporting role.
• While initially practical, alternative deployment architectures will be succumbed by IMS.

More on the Report

1. The Promises and Benefits of IMS
2. The IMS Framework
   • Access Networks
   • Transport Layer
   • Session Management Layer
   • Services/Applications Layer
3. IMS in the Competitive Landscape of Telecom Services
4. Threats and Challenges for IMS
5. Will IMS Forever Be a Walled Garden?
6. IN/CAMEL Services
7. Evolutionary Path to IMS for Network Equipment
8. IMS Applications
9. Fixed Mobile Convergence
   • What Is Fixed Mobile Convergence, and Why Is It Useful?
   • How Do IMS Standards Enable FMC?
   • Examples of FMC Deployments
10. Presence
    • Description of Presence Service
    • Standards Supporting Presence
    • Deployment Example
11. Push-to-X
    • Description of Push-to-X Application
    • Standards Supporting Push-to-X
    • Deployment Examples
12. Rich calls
    • Description of Rich Calls Application
    • Standards Supporting Rich Calls
    • Deployment Examples
13. Personalized Communication/Information Services
    • Description of Personalized Communication/Information Services Application
    • Standards Supporting Personalized Communication/Information Services
    • Deployment Examples
14. Multiparty Gaming
    • Description of Multiparty Gaming Application
    • Standards Supporting Multiparty Gaming
    • Deployment Examples
15. Multimedia Telephony Including Video Calling
    • Description of Multimedia Telephony Application
    • Standards Supporting Multimedia Telephony
    • Deployment Examples
16. Audio/Web/Videoconferencing
    • Description of Audio/Web/Videoconferencing Application
    • Standards Supporting Audio/Web/Videoconferencing
    • Deployment Examples
17. Interactive Voice Response
    • Description of Interactive Voice Response
    • Standards Supporting Interactive Voice Response
    • Deployment Examples
18. Consumer Voice services/Business Voice Services
    • Description of Voice Application
    • Consumer/Business VoIP versus Multimedia Telephony Services
    • Standards Supporting VoIP
    • Deployment Examples
19. IPTV interactions
    • Description of IPTV Application
    • Standards Supporting IPTV Applications
    • Examples of IPTV Deployments
20. Messaging Applications
    • Description of Messaging Application
    • Standards Supporting Messaging
    • Deployment Examples
21. Service Capability Interaction Manager (SCIM)
    • Description of SCIM
    • Standards Supporting SCIM
    • Deployment Examples
22. Alternate Service Delivery Methods
23. IMS Application Ecosystem
24. Conclusions

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