Two high-tech communications players have completed the first phase in a
series of tests to show how a next-generation IP data and communications
infrastructure works.
Phone giant Nokia and systems vendor NEC
successfully completed interoperability testing between their
IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS), the companies said Wednesday.
The tests were designed to show how major IMS features could
work over an IP network connecting Europe and Japan. During the tests, Nokia
and NEC established sessions for voice over IP
transferred instant messages
test terminals.
The trials are also being used to look at issues related to
roaming at the service level. The ultimate objective is to have roaming for
IMS-based services, allowing users to access the services of their home
country even when they are abroad.
“In the future, we see IP-based multimedia becoming mainstream, providing
people with a richer means of communications,” Petri Poyhonen, vice
president of Nokia’s Core Networks, said in a statement. “The success of
these trials shows the IMS standards are now mature enough for compatible
implementation by different vendors.”
IMS, as specified in 3GPP
Release 5 (PDF file), allows for push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC); other IP
multimedia services can also be accessed over any IP connection, such as GPRS
or WLAN hotspots , Ericsson
and British Telecom also support IMS standards.
Major equipment vendors are standardizing on the IMS architecture,
because, as mobile devices and services evolve, operators want to tap into
the high bandwidth of fixed and local-area wireless network resources.
The problem had been that there was no common
service environment.
NEC and Nokia claim the IMS architecture does the trick,
because it enables a homogeneous service environment and incorporates IP,
session initiation protocol (SIP), application servers, home subscriber
servers and multimedia resource functions.
Nokia’s IMS platform, launched in spring 2003, introduced SIP-based
applications as a network service. After an extensive testing period with
operator customers, the Nokia IMS is now shipping, and live tests are
ongoing in several major European networks. Because of the new standards,
Nokia said its operator customers now have new revenue opportunities both in
2G and 3G networks.
NEC’s IMS solution is a combination of its carrier-grade middleware and
Unix servers. The company said its IMS technology is available with both
IPv6 and IPv4 address handling.
“IMS increases the value of an operator’s network and subscriber base,”
Jay Miyahara, general manager of NEC’s Mobilefone Solutions Division, said in
a statement. “It will also allow mobile network operators to deliver new
kinds of services to their users.”
On the foundation of its Mobile Internet Platform, NEC said it will
aggressively expand sales efforts in its primary products of “Ring back
melodies,” in which phone call recipients let call senders hear their
favorite music or messages; “Location information system,” a platform for
providing various services based on participant location; and “3G/2.5G Mobile
Visual Solution,” which provides such multimedia data as cartoons, together with
its other application software offerings.
