3GPP - 4G Americas

ecomes more relevant. Rami Avidan of Wyless projects next generation technologies will help
drive the business in new and innovative ways, however, this is a view for the next two to four
years. Avidan estimates that 95% of the customers are happy with GPRS/EDGE/3G today. 115
However, as capacity requirements increase, specialized devices for M2M applications are
developed, and companies partner to address vertical market application opportunities, the M2M
market will require the benefits of LTE.
4.5 IP MULTIMEDIA SUBSYSTEM (IMS)
IMS is an important component of 3GPP evolution, and this architecture is rapidly maturing. IMS
is expected to provide mobile telephone operators with a forecasted $300 billion in extra revenue
over the next five years (through 2013) according to ABI Research due to new services delivered
with IMS. “Until recently IMS was mainly the province of fixed-line operators,” said senior analyst
Nadine Manjaro. “But now it is essential to the success of mobile and fixed operators who are
losing revenue from traditional sources. IMS enables rapid development and deployment of new
116
services.”
Perhaps a remaining challenge is the integration of IMS without operators disrupting existing
services. Introducing IMS into a wireless network is not a a trival task, and requires support and
coordination between a complex ecosystem, including IMS core, IMS Application Servers,
devices/terminals, IT/billing/customer care/OSS/etc., and in many cases enhancements and
modifications to existing 2G and 3G infrastructure to provide seamless service delivery across the
old and new networks. This need is being met by a wide variety of vendors, including all the
infrastructure members of 3G Americas, who have products and services which support, in
various ways, operators’ ambitions to migrate towards IMS.
Work was conducted by organizations such as the GSM Association in 2008 to test carrier ENUM
services and make it easier to send IMs, MMS, emails, videos and any other IP content between
mobiles and fixed line phones, as well as mobile-to-mobile transmissions. Bharti, mobilkom
Austria, SMART, Telekom Austria, Telecom Italia and Telenor were involved in the “Pathfinder”
service pilot that successfully provided fixed and mobile operators with a single routing
mechanism, to simplify and reduce the cost of delivery of a wide range of IP-based services to
end-users. “Pathfinder” achieved full commercial service by the end of 2008 and automatically
translates a phone number into an IP-based address making it transparent for users to initiate a
wide range of IP-based communications via their existing phone numbers and handset address
books.
“As we move to the end of the decade, mobile networks will emerge with a flat all-IP architecture
using 3GPP standards to deliver multimedia services and VoIP,” said Ian Cox, principal analyst at
ABI Research. “In the meantime operators want to offer attractive calling plans to consumer and
enterprise users. This will enable a single device to use both mobile and fixed broadband
network, improving business efficiency and enabling users to access directory information easily
115 Ibid.
116 IP Multimedia Subsystems’ $300 Billion Opportunity. ABI Research. 13 March 2008.
www.3GAmericas.org February 2009 Page 34