IMS Essentials, Market Status and Case Studies Workshop

1. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
IMS Essentials, Market Status and Case Studies Workshop
Background
The religious war has ended, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) did not become widely
deployed within the first decade of the 21st century. Surprisingly for many in the industry,
SS7 (Signaling System #7) remains in rude health and VoIP (Voice over IP) continues its
linear, not exponential, growth.
So where is IMS? Telenor has recently launched a suite of business services based on IMS.
Verizon and AT&T have been quite vocal on their IMS deployments. China Mobile and
Telecom Malaysia are both in the midst of IMS deployments. However, most of the field
trials and initial deployments did not migrate to full network deployments.
No one can argue against the need for IP multimedia session control with dynamic QoS
(Quality of Service), to enable 'reliable as the PSTN' voice communications across any
capable network, and for call features to work transparently across those disparate
networks. So given the transition to IP in most operators over the past decade, why hasn't
IMS followed that trend?
This Workshop was stimulated from a series of frustrating conversations around IMS where
there appeared to be a significant gap between my experiences in working with operators
around the world in the services layer and the “reality” presented by a number of senior
marketing people. This workshop aims to provide a valuable independent status report that
can help all in the industry have a clear view on the current status of IMS and the likely
paths operators will take in the evolution of their networks.
Case studies on the IMS activities of Verizon, China Mobile, Vodafone Spain and an APAC
operator are reviewed. Verizon presents a leading deployment example of IMS adoption.
Being a converged operator provides a strong opex (Operational Expenditure) benefit in
migrating to a converged IMS core. Verizon’s need to deploy LTE (Long Term Evolution, 4G)
sooner rather than later given the end of life of CDMA requires voice over IP support with
QoS (Quality of Service) over its RAN (Radio Access Network) before most other operators.
Its high ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) and a track record of technology leadership
means it’s able to tolerate the risk of being an early adopter. Those characteristics are
critical in driving Verizon to adopt IMS; we can see a similar decision process for other non-
GSM operators such as NTT.
For GSM operators the drive to LTE and IMS is not as strong, their 3G networks support
circuit based voice, HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access) with the potential to deliver 42Mbit/s
within a 5MHz carrier delays their need to roll out 4G until 2013/2014, while CDMA
operators are limited to 3.1 Mbit/s. Some suppliers in the interviews made an argument
that RAN efficiency will drive all operators towards VoIP over LTE within the next 2/3 years.
This argument is not reflected in the operators concerns; their concern is solving the
problem of cost effectively supporting mobile broadband, not voice. However, again
industry hype is sadly over-taking commercial common sense with LTE.
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

2. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
The workshop is divided into four sections:
 IMS Essentials, an introduction to IMS;
 Global IMS market survey;
 Case studies on operators experiences; and
 Conclusions and recommendations.
Workshop Objectives
 Provide a deep-dive quantified analysis of the IMS market status, enabling attendees to
understand what operators and suppliers are thinking and planning.
 Learn from real-world operator deployments understanding their challenges and
opportunities.
 An aim is not to provide yet another IMS technology training session; the vendors
provide enough of them, rather a focused workshop of the practical realities of
deploying IMS. However, a brief IMS review is provided so all attendees no matter their
background (especially non-technical) can understand the survey results and case
studies.
 The case studies will review the environment in which IMS is deployed, including IMS
and SDP (Service Delivery Platform), Next generation IN (Intelligent Network), legacy IN,
and JAIN SLEE (Java IN Service Logic Execution Environment).
Workshop Delivery Options
• Full 3 day course (600+ slides) – including IMS introduction (which to be frank many
of the suppliers will provide for free, so I wouldn’t recommend the full course unless
you really want an independent view.)
• Fast-track 2 day course through most of the program – group discussion is limited.
• Market survey and case studies can be done in 1 day with a brief IMS refresher.
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

3. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
Program
Introduction to IMS
• What is IMS
• IMS drivers
• IMS and NGN
–
IMS Technology Overview
• IMS Architecture
• IMS Protocols
• Key IMS Concepts
– Use cases: addressing, session setup, presence, QoS
– Profile
– Service Control
– Application co-location, collapsed IMS
– Presence
– Group Lists
• Rich Communications Suite
• IMS and IPTV
• IMS and IPV6
• IMS Service Continuity
• IMS Charging
Global IMS Market Survey
 Interviewee analysis
 IMS activities and plans
 IMS barriers
 Vendor ranking
 IMS pricing
 Rich Communications Suite
 Conclusions
Case Studies
 Verizon
o Background and principles
o Breaking down the silos
o Service delivery ecosystem
o Integration experience
o Conclusions and recommendations
 China Mobile
o Full service operation overview
o Challenges and requirements
o Solution and deployment
o Service roadmap
 Telecom Malaysia
o Background and challenges
o Network and service transformation project
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

4. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
o Project results and recommendations given their experience
 Vodafone Spain service broker
o Homezone service description
o Problem and solution description
 FarEasTone
 BT
IMS Prognosis, Conclusions and Recommendations
 IMS Prognosis: where is the marketing going?
 Conclusions and Recommendations
o Operator recommendations
o Network equipment vendor recommendations
o Service layer supplier recommendations
o Handset and CPE vendor recommendations
o Application developer recommendations
o Investor recommendations
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

5. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
Content Samples
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

6. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

7. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development

8. Alan Quayle Business and Service Development: Workshop Outline
 2011 Alan Quayle Business and Service Development