AT&T, Verizon Looking at IMS in a Bad Economy

The economy is in a tailspin, but that might be good news for IMS and the converged, all-IP, anywhere/anytime, revenue-generating applications it can enable. For instance, the IMS/NGN Forum told VON.com that there are definite “rumbles in the industry” about AT&T Inc. deploying more IMS in order to leverage its U-verse network for efficient content porting across its wired and wireline networks, while Verizon Communications Inc. is internalizing IMS as part of its roadmap for the same reason.

For its part, Verizon has been deploying IMS in a building-block fashion, and now specifically wants to address complexity concerns in the integration of fixed and mobile services, especially IPTV. The carrier is looking at Release 8 and 9 of the standard to bring in the functionality it needs to justify more deployment, it has divulged.

Perhaps most tellingly for the IMS ecosystem, the two American heavyweights aren’t alone in taking a look at extending their IMS plans. While IMS right now lives almost exclusively in core networks, with the access side and carrier interconnection pieces largely absent, economic-related macro-trends are emerging that are affecting carriers’ network transformation priorities across the board. For instance, CDMA-based mobile carriers moving to LTE (like Verizon Wireless, incidentally) will have a tough time without IMS stitching their disparate, non-standardized legacy equipment together with the new IP-based standard network to provide the same user experience to all subscribers.

“Frankly, carriers don't have a choice but to continue with IMS,” said Manuel Vexler when asked about this. Vexler, as chairman of the IMS Technical Working Group for the Forum, has been hard at work testing the blueprint for abstracting applications over a common IP network topology, most recently during the Forum’s Plugfest 6 in January.

“They’re continuing to roll out LTE for wireless and DOCSIS 3.0 for cable, and there is a clear push towards IP access otherwise,” he explained. “Those technologies are more efficient, and they can deliver services at a lower cost per bit, which is critical. If you want to leverage broadband, then you move to VoIP. For video and multimedia to take off, which is the future, you need an all-IP architecture end-to-end and the ability to bridge legacy and new networks, and not just IMS in the core.”

It’s also a question of considering specific services. “They are in fact moving beyond thinking of this as a core technology because there are relevant end user products and services that you need IMS for in order to deliver a great user experience and interface,” said Nicolas Appert, CEO at software platform developer Inexbee.