IMS/NGN Forum releases second IMS Report Card

December 2, 2008 - The IMS/NGN Forum, an industry association dedicated to interoperabiity and certification of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Next Generation Networks (NGN) applications and services, has released its second IMS Report Card containing the results from the five IMS Forum Plugfest events conducted to date and clarifying the state of IMS as a technology and framework.

"We can speak with confidence that IMS is moving forward rapidly," said Michael Khalilian, Chairman & President NGN and IMS Forum. "Early, conflicting information from vendors and service providers (SPs), both in favour of and challenging the technology, have blurred and complicated the understanding of IMS. We have the facts about IMS and NGN, and with each new Plugfest the list of standards-compliant and interoperable IMS services that are ready for deployment grows.

"Objections to the IMS architecture on the grounds of its lack of interoperability, its immaturity, or its complexity are no longer tenable," he adds. "We have seen multiple vendors quickly integrate and deploy services in a multi-vendor, multi-service service provider IMS network. Many SPs also recognised the value of IMS and are working toward deploying IMS in a modular fashion."

The Report Card tackles perceived hurdles for IMS technology across ten different categories - business case, complexity, IMS core, standards, interoperability, key features, SIP integration, applications, deployment and legacy network - and provides data to refute the "myths". There are a number of areas identified as needing work however, such as IMS-based service uptime, which is described as critical to network operator revenue, while reliability, security, billing and roaming are named as key areas that need to be addressed.

The new Report Card concludes that IMS is a "demonstrably real" technology, with vendors delivering real products and services today, and operators are making steady progress towards simplifying their network architectures to all-IP routers and softswitches, and the report summarises that the advantages and business case for IMS are increasingly becoming clear.

To download the IMS Report Card please click here