BSS/OSS Vendors Plug Into IMS Forum

If you’re looking for a sign of the times, this is it. In the new era of the next generation network – arriving as we speak by way of IMS and pre-IMS architectures and some hybrid variations thereof – operations software is no longer an afterthought.

As the IP Multimedia Subsystem marches slowly toward general acceptance and real-world implementations of its core technology, the time has come to begin proving that the revenue-generating services promised by this new architecture can be delivered — as promised — across multiple networks, through multi-vendor environments and most important, profitably.

Acknowledging that the core network cannot achieve this alone as it has in the past, the infrastructure crowd has integrated billing and operations support system functionality into the IMS Forum’s annual plugfest at the University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab.

Plugfests are designed to advance interoperability for developers of new network technologies. The UNH defines a plugfest as “group test events that allow participants to collectively test their devices with each other in accordance with a specific test plan. These test plans are comprised of interoperability tests based on functional aspects of a given standard.”

Most participants in the plugfests agree that, in practice, plugfests are more about the interpretation of a given standard. Only through interoperability testing can vendors determine whose interpretation or which combinations of interpretations are more conducive to an open, multivendor environment.

The first three IMS events focused on the interoperability of networks and network equipment in small scale networks.

Plugfest IV was bigger and more broad. It was conducted in February at the UNH IOL. Results from the exercise were shared at the VON.x Conference on March 18 by execs from HP, Aricent and more. The big payoff for participants and for the industry as a whole was two-fold: Participants completed the first successful IMS call between mobile devices and core network elements, such as Proxy Call Session Control Function (P-CSCF) servers, the Serving Call Session Control Function (S-CSCF) and Home Subscriber Servers (HSS), all from separate vendors and across two large scale networks. That’s interoperability.

But more important for the Billing & OSS World readers, the forum has moved from testing core architectures to IMS-based services. And in the process, it wisely expanded the configuration to include billing interfaces for charging and included in its test plan, tests for IMS-compliant charging and billing systems in multiple network configurations.