Review of IMS World Forum 2011

Last week in Barcelona took place the 8th IMS World Forum (by Informa Telecom&Media). It was quite impressive how the number of delegates, speakers and sponsors were up from previous editions and most important, now optimism regarding IMS future was present.
All keynotes and panels were very interesting, and both carriers and suppliers took about present and future strategies and current deployments. Also the analysts have a leading role trying to get the most of possible info to be discussed. As a summary, the key points that in our opinion are the key takeaways are:

• Finally IMS "is happening".
• LTE and RCS-e seem to be the key enablers
• There are appearing simplified IMS "cores" to make easy and affordable the IMS.
• The business models are converging and at the same way that OTT's are being in some way "telcos", telcos must become soon in some ways "OTT's".  IMS should be the technological base of a Telco-OTT style. This was our point in the 2 panels we participated.
• Carriers are starting to test some OTT models, Telefonica acquisition of local social network Tuenti, and launching an associated MVNO could be a good example. Still to see how to integrate telco technology to make better the OTT delivery.
• Very interesting strategies explained by Verizon Wireless (US) & Rogers (Canada).

The exhibitors booths showcase their IMS architecture, and yes, it seems now it is happening. Particulary interesting the SMX product by Acme Packet, a cost-effective IMS architecture to allow whatever type of service provider to enable IMS services as VoIP & RCS-e. RCS-e could be enabled with SMX without the need of Instant Messaging server if the carrier prefers to launch without chat 1-to-many and store&forward features. A good trade off then.

And last, we hope to see IMS and their key enablers launchs very soon in many places, and of course we are eager to participate, remember our RCS Open&Ubiquitous trial as a Service :-)

Panel at IMS 2.0 World Forum in Barcelona.

Next week I will be at IMS 2.0 World Forum 2010 in Barcelona and will participate in a panel "How to boost IMS applications" on 29th, April.
We are happy to be there and have the chance of explaining a demo-ing how Rich Communication Suite (RCS) could be the killer app based on IMS and not only "app" but "solutions enabler".
The IMS 2.0 forum is also a chance to be in touch technology and service development representatives from main suppliers and carriers and meet new leads.
This is our second year there as speakers, and it seems finally this year the IMS community will be more optimistical, as RCS is taking off with some important trials, being interoperated with different carriers. Finally carriers are understanding the role of IMS, and also they should work together to offer a "solution" mass market model (as SMS in the past) against the "app" model, not able to arrive to the masses.

juan

How can IMS help launching new services?

During past IMS 2.0 World Forum, panelists pointed about IMS deployment being slower than anticipated. When convergence is a main goal, but on the other hand internet communication services are becoming more and more popular, the Telco role is being questioned mainly from internet related representatives.
In our opinion, even considering the fact that a lot of convergent communication services can be offered directly only needing connectivity from the telcos, this approach has 2 weaknesses in order to boost "mass market" services:
a) Complexity, the mobile penetration index is higher than pc-based internet penetration, then a lot of mobile users with not internet and internet-based literacy will be out of mobile advanced services revolutions if the approach is the "internet applications" one.
b) Entry costs for users, the internet/internet applications based approach to enrich mobile solutions needs powerful smartphones, and has portability costs, and most of people don't want to install hundreds of apps.

In the past we can find examples of simple enablers being the base of very different services (SMS case). Simple and common enablers, included in all the device range are easy to be massively adopted. This is the main reason to forecast that proper combination of IMS with RCS (rich comunication suite) combined with a proper and "transparent" billing scheme could be a good alternative for carriers to keep heading the mobile revolution for the masses and this is compatible with other approaches.
Find our keynote about "what final user wants and how IMS could fit the bill" :-)

Solaiemes VP to speak at IMS 2.0 WorldForum

Luis Valencia, our IMS Products VP is one of the selected speakers of the 6th IMS 2.0 WorldForum next 28-30th April in Barcelona.
Luis will be introducing the keynote "What does the End User Want and How Can IMS Fit the Bill?" and later participating in the pannel "Strategies to Addressing the End User’s Needs from IMS".
Solaiemes learnt from final potential and early adopters "communication solutions" users what they need from the current and future networks. Multimedia capabilities enable a lot of added value use cases, both enterprise/government and mass market fields, eager to be adopted. The lack of compatible services (too much focused the market on device applications, with no compatibility with different mobile OS) and the unknown cost of data traffic involved with the service were two big stones in the middle of the road.
Fortunately, now, RCS initiative and the each time more extended "flat rate and/or stepped semi-flat rates" billing data traffic will help to boost IMS and got their maximum potential.
Solaiemes is one of the companies believing in the future of IMS, developing Application Servers to provide "communication solutions", premise and mobile_cloud/hosted, making real use cases of VideoShare, PTT, Presence, VoIP and VideoIP in mobile / convergence spaces with particular focused on mobile/web2.0 interaction. We are pleased to share this important forum with speakers and delegates from hugest carriers as Telefonica, France Telecom, TeliaSonera, Telenor, KPN, telecom top suppliers as Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and also succesful mobile start-up's colleagues.