Next Gen Networks
Next generation networks, SDP and IMS, what do these terms actually mean, and how will they impact the business cases of mobile, fixed, and converged operators, their partners and their suppliers?
With every pre-IMS compliant application server being hailed as an “IMS” reference site, is it now time to bring some clarity to this issue? Here, we talk to representatives from three areas, the core network supplier, the applications focussed vendor, and the company whose job it is to stitch it all together.
What do these people understand by next generation networks, and by IMS, and how do they think it will affect their businesses and, more importantly, those of their customers?
The core network supplier
Fluent and urbane, Seppanen has been around IMS as long as the standard has been talked about. He is clear about the core basics of IMS — the CSCF and HSS — and the core drivers for NGNs. With the bulk of Nokia’s core network sales now accounted for by mobile softswitches, Seppanen is in no doubt that cost reduction to meet changing business models is key.
“We’re seeing the growth of mobile to three billion subscribers in 2008. But the speed of the transition from fixed to mobile is even more significant. 10% of overall telephony traffic switched from fixed to mobile in Finland last year, in the USA there was a 7% switch.
We’re also seeing growth in fixed broadband access, with the first traditional telephony network is set to close down in 2010. The closure of the PTT means that NGN will have taken over completely.”
“The pain operators face is the need to cut the cost of their infrastructure, technology and organisational structure. The cost of telephony services still dominates. Telephony will still account for 85% of revenues by 2010, and operators need a new cost structure for that part of the business.”
Open application infrastructure
“In cellular – the jury is still out. The first step is widespread implementation of R4 soft switching. This alone can account for 50-70% operational expenditure savings. The savings are due to site reduction, being able to centralise in a few sites, and then distribute media gateways at the edge.
It means you can optimise routing and your costs of expertise in a few centres.
At same time, operators are aware that they can plan for the IMS telephony environment. With R4 control functions, a mobile softswitch acts as a telephony application server to IMS domain.”
The business opportunity
“There’s an opportunity for alternative service providers, with the advent of dual mode phones, in home and office WLANs. They are looking at how they could provide services at a low cost level.
“And for other operators it’s a chance to attack and expand, especially into business customers, providing hosted business communications services and bringing two big markets together – mobility and the PBX function, and providing that as an IP Centrex service.
“Thirdly, it’s in preparation for cellular access networks, with HSDPA radio technology and IP optimised radio technology, to generate VoIP cost optimisation with an R4 core.
“For the new applications part — Instant Messaging, Push To Talk (PTT) etc — it needs to start from a gradual level of acceptance. PTT is now live in 33 countries’ GSM networks. Video sharing is now supported in 3 live networks.
“It’s clear these applications are following a slow adoptive compared to volume voice replacement rollouts.
But traditional carriers are not the only source of apps in this environment. ISPs or internet based companies are offering access through the open network to IP based services.
IMS and SDP provides the framework for operators’ networks to become modular and contribute to the new emerging value chain.
For example location awareness, network presence, this information is valuable to anyone providing even non-coms orientated services.
IMS and SDP allows third parties to have the machinery to share revenues.
“But it is in the IMS application domain where things are going wild, anything remotely related to IMS is cited as an IMS reference.”
“The core IMS components are the HSS and CSCF functions. For these two server products Nokia has 23 commercial systems delivered and 23 in trials mode —
half in cellular and half for VoIP on fixed access networks. We have 29 presence server commercial deals. Where the range of players can contribute is in the SDP layers.”
The applications expert
Julian Keates is Applications Principal, EMEA, Motorola.
With his focus on applications he understands more than most the opportunities IMS offers. He’s also very clear about keeping things simple — as well as SIMPLE!
“The definition of IMS has become the single biggest challenge, I have been at some of the IMS conferences this year and very rapidly came to understand that IMS means different things to different people.
“Fundamentally IMS a target architecture under the auspices of 3GPP and the evolution of a particular release of a target architecture.
“Vendors and operators and applications people talk about it in an abstract way, as opposed to practical bits which are of immediate value. From our perspective, early stage IMS is HSS and the CSCF, they’re the two key elements that allow you to put in place the database for subscriber management and basic SIP signalling infrastructure.
“That would be enough for a basic set of IMS network applications, however, practically if you consider we’re then going to need to break in and break out of that network, immediately need security, media gateways and all the rest.
“In these terms, the fixed operators have got a head start, as the environment in which they operate is simpler. The application goes on to a PC at little or no cost to the end user or the operator.
The handset challenge
For a mobile operator the handset itself is the single biggest challenge. An IMS application requires some sort of SIP stack on the handset, OMA capability for presence and group list management, and so the real challenge for IMS applications is getting them onto the handset.
“Typically 5% of new handset sales are smartphones, and generally they are the only ones with the capability of running IMS applications today. Feature phones with embedded real time OS make implementing a high quality application on the phone a more difficult task. So operators have to wait for the upgrade cycle of consumer handset replacement to get IMS capability into market. It’s about getting a critical mass of handsets that can run the right kind of applications.
The potential
“Push to Talk – there’s history now with OMA 1.0 ratified, and we’re waiting for release 2.0 of PoC, but with release 1.0 of PoC it can run as an IMS application. The history of PoC illustrated the real challenge to come and it’s fair to say it’s the fist IMS application. The app was held up by handsets and as a result was viewed as an enterprise application in Western Europe. But it will be the first IMS app and a very successful IMS application.
“It will also benefit from the componentised approach in IMS. The value proposition is because presence and buddy lists are broken out as re-usable components — then the incremental cost of building new applications is greatly reduced.
“Take one potential IMS application – instant messaging. Practically it is starting to launch with OMA IMPS – which is not an IMS standard. But operators can deliver a mobile IM solution with current support for OMA IMPS and future support for OMA SIP/SIMPLE (IMS based IM) as a single service to consumers, supporting both legacy IMPS and the new high end with SIP support.
“ It enables operators to address the critical mass.
It comes down to communities – what is your strategy for accessing communities? The first is to access existing IM services, typically by OMA IMPS application on the client and server, with server gateway to relevant IM network. But you still need a commercial agreement with the IM community, which has financial implications. What I understand from IM vendors is the general move to SIP/SIMPLE versus OMA IMS to provide that gateway functionality. Second, is to create your own community that’s based on OMA IMPS but to have support at a technical level for OMA IMPS and SIP/SIMPLE, addressing legacy and newer handsets, and being able to offer more services as an operator, such as mobile to PC IM, or your own VoIP solution, making your services more sticky.
“PTT/ IM/ videoshare they’re all good examples of mobile services that mobile operators can extend into the fixed domain with very low entry cost.”
The mash up
“This is the million dollar question. What are the IMS applications? This is where the talk is about mobile operators going beyond their core competencies, exploiting internet innovation and changing how applications are innovated. It’s about Web 2.0 combined with telco services – the mash up concept.
With the open APIs published by web companies, such as Google, Flickr etc you can mix some mobile multimedia with ISP services and provide a much better set of application capabilities. That’s the real value in so-called IMS applications.”
Why IMS?
IMS is not a SDP. It’s a service layer control plane. There’s a need to distinguish ultra mass-market applications such as voice, Centrex, conferencing, video call and conferencing. Those applications arguably do not need to run in a SDP, as opposed to the host of third party applications, which will be managed via the SDP.
In practice, it parallels Parlay, ParlayX; web services architectures that open up core telco apps third parties.
Putting it all together
Mobile operators are focusing on a limited number of key strategic partners as they transform their network and operational infrastructures, meaning there will only be a few winners in each market, according to ex-Yankee Group analyst Sanjay Mewada.
Mewada, who is now vice president of strategy of strategy at OSS vendor Netcracker, said that instead of dealing with a clutch of vendors to develop point solutions for each area of activity, operators are now looking to deal with just a handful of trusted strategic partners.
“Carriers are now making big bets with vendors,” Mewada said, “and in the areas of fulfilment, assurance, CRM, networks and systems integration they are moving to a few strategic partners on their transformation projects.”
But Mewada also said that there will increasingly be an inevitable blurring of the boundaries between the service fulfillment area (in which Netcracker works) and service assurance, in which he currently thinks Vallent has the best play in mobile, with perhaps IBM-Micromuse the heaviest hitter from the fixed side. In the billing side, he named Amdocs and fancied Oracle in the CRM side.
Although Amdocs has added inventory specialist Cramer to its capability, Mewada said that he still viewed Amdocs as a billing company, rather than a big competitor in the service layer. “They’re a $2 billion billing company,” he said, “but only an $80 million OSS company.”As for Telcordia, which has been making a great deal of itself as a fulfilment expert for next gen services, Medawa said the company had great strength in TDM- “that’s their pedigree” – but asserted that his greatest competition is operators’ internal IT.
Mewada said that operators have been concentrating on the next generation of their network layers, and of their customer layer (the billing and CRM piece) but they have not yet been making similar investment in the service layer, which sits between the two.
But operators need to create a unified service layer if they are to reap the true benefits of NGNs, Medawa said, because it’s only by having that service infrastructure that operators can differentiate.
“We see IMS/SDP sitting between the network and service layers as a hybrid, and as a validation of our emphasis of where that differentiation will be created,” he said.
“After investment in CRM and networks, we’ve got to the point where investment in OSS is critical. You’re now seeing that all the major operators have OSS transformation projects in hand.”
The momentum for that has come from the need for operators to reduce integration and failure costs, Mewada said, as they seek to open up their service creaion and delivery capabilities. Accordingly they have put pressure on the market to deliver interoperable and open standards, which would ultimately enable them to create unified service infrastructures.