IMS BILLING & DEPLOYMENT - Storing up future problems?
IMS has gained substantial momentum as the standardised architecture for the convergence of communications service delivery. But many early adopters have taken a network-centric 
approach to the benefits of IMS deployment rather than taking a holistic view of the strategic opportunities, says Simon Dadswell
IMS is set to be a big numbers game if industry forecasts are correct. Global industry analyst Stratecast estimate in its report Next Generation OSS for IMS and Next Generation Networks – Now!, (December 2006) that capital expenditure on IMS infrastructure will rise from US$179 million in 2006 to over US$10billion in 2010. Informa takes a more conservative stance, forecasting worldwide capital spending on IMS infrastructure to reach $4. 5billion in the same period, according to its report IMS Opportunities and Challenges: Fixed and wireless market outlook, (March 2006). Others believe there will be a delay in market acceptance until the success of early adopters becomes visible, followed by a significant ramp up in 2009 or 2010. Regardless of the accuracy of these forecasts most industry commentators accept that virtually every major telecom service provider is now including IMS in one form or another in strategic planning. The industry has for some time been working towards the adoption of ‘Triple Play’, ‘Quadruple Play’ and ‘Fixed-Mobile Convergence’ (FMC) - all of which are enabled by the potential of IMS. IMS helps to standardise protocols to eliminate proprietary technology and enable interoperability for all IP-based services, and provides the opportunity for ubiquitous access for users regardless of service, terminal type or location.
Telecoms service providers are undergoing a period of dynamic change in the provision of services, so they need to have strategies to react to change effectively – and adoption of IMS is a key component. A concern is that current approaches to IMS may end up missing significant opportunities for the future. That is why it’s important to highlight the key characteristics that IMS must possess to secure the right business results for the telecoms sector.
The first consideration is that IMS is usually only linked with the short term issues of deploying new services cost-effectively. Many service providers take the approach that IMS is purely a network engineering issue and their IMS adoption business case is only based on OPEX reduction for network and service management.
The challenge is broader than that. If cost reduction is the basis for the business case then the adoption of IMS and resulting competitive strategies would proceed incrementally at the pace of normal equipment replacement cycles. While network consolidation and saving on operating expenses is an admirable objective for a service provider, new competitive threats from the Internet based world are fast emerging. The battle for the consumer will increasingly be fought over content, services and brand equity, not over access or network capacity. Capacity demand is unlikely to significantly ramp up in the short term and the major ‘New Age’ telcos present a clear and present threat to future revenue as they begin to redefine the direction of telecom and broadband services. For established service providers IMS implementation has to be more about the introduction of new multimedia services, P2P services like video sharing, and innovative service bundling.
The second consideration is that IMS needs to be recognised as a horizontal technology offering potential benefits across the service provider’s entire portfolio, and linking the world of the Network Management department and the IT Operations department for both wireline and wireless services. This adds complexity to the process of creating a compelling business case for the entire organisation and can result in departmental battles between IT and network engineering. If a Network Equipment Provider bundles the key IMS Charging technology with its next generation equipment to enable the network engineering department to retain ownership of IMS mediation projects, then how does this effect organisational strategy? Service providers should consider a pragmatic approach to IMS adoption by exploiting their existing technology investments and gradually replacing legacy network and OSS/BSS elements. In addition, online and offline charging have very distinct business requirements. Service providers should consider the deployment of proven IMS Charging technologies with the flexibility to handle rapidly evolving business models without compromising service capabilities at the expense of the network.
The third consideration is the evolution of triple-play and quad-play services and new revenue generating opportunities. IMS deployment helps service providers integrate discrete fixed and mobile network technology to deliver fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) and reduce time to market for new services. However many service providers need to do more research to determine what sort of services customers want to receive. The concept of convergence is finally becoming a reality but there are several different options to reach this particular goal. It is essential that service providers focus on the revenue generating potential of new services as a key driver to FMC by exploiting IMS as a means to obtain a larger share of the customer’s wallet. Furthermore, the adoption of IP based communications and value added service strategies will open-up new wholesale business opportunities for service providers, including integrated transport solutions, multiple platforms for customised solutions and a wider services portfolio.
Currently Voice-over-IP (VoIP) appears to be the service most frequently targeted for initial IMS deployment and is sometimes enhanced with IMS-related application services like personalisation, presence or special routing. A typical example of these features in combination would be a laptop-housed soft phone application operating as an alternative to a mobile phone. When the user is logged in to the laptop, incoming calls could be routed to it instead of the mobile handset, subject to the subscriber-controlled presence settings, similar to those found on Instant Messaging services. Outbound calls could be made, and rated, as if they originated from the subscriber’s home service location, regardless of the current location of the laptop. The laptop phone’s address book would be automatically synchronised with the mobile handset. In addition, IMS services, as experienced by the user, can be created from a palette of network and application service components including voice, presence, personalisation, content delivery, content sharing and blogging, various forms of messaging (chat, push-to-talk, e-mail, calendaring), synchronisation of subscriber-owned data across devices; and seamless delivery of all these components across traditional network boundaries – the options and complexity ensure that to follow a proprietary network based charging approach could risk a service provider being locked into a very limited set of service options.
The fourth consideration is one of differentiation. IMS is about offering new opportunities in an open and standards based framework - enabling rapid and cost effective ‘plug and play’ capabilities for multimedia services, regardless of service delivery platform types and end-user devices. However equipment and application vendors are attempting to differentiate services outside that framework and are enforcing their own extension to provisioning and charging standards. For IMS to work properly and deliver to its true potential it is important to ensure interoperability and facilitate the progress of open interfaces and standards in an all-IP world. Differentiation comes from a compelling mix of services, flexible charging options and consistently high quality, multi-channel customer care – not from the deployment of proprietary technology.
Service providers are starting to invest in IMS. They are taking into account how they can benefit from IMS in the short term to streamline network architectures and to reduce operational costs. While this may help to reduce OPEX the strategic opportunity is to enable new competitive revenue opportunities associated with the growth in multimedia, content and FMC services.
If service providers are to make the shift from network-centric to service-oriented organisations, it is paramount that they invest in highly adaptive infrastructures to exploit the full potential of IMS and next generation BSS/OSS. By so doing they will be able to charge, bill and manage a wider range of complex services – services that will have increasingly shorter lifecycles, intense competition, increasing price pressures and will require back office systems to manage them profitably and efficiently.
Simon Dadswell is Advanced Solutions Marketing Manager, Intec Telecom Systems
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