Perhaps no topic has been hotter this year than IMS, a network architecture and services framework that enables service providers to offer consumers new blended applications and services across any wireline or wireless network, to any device. Learn how to cut through the spin and the jargon during the IMS Forums conference program on Monday, designed to introduce and explain IMS and its benefits in a clear-cut way.

Todays COMPTEL Classroom presentation will provide a technological overview of the architecture, while explaining how revenue-generating possibilities address current deployments. The telecom services and CLEC business is changing as we know it, said presenter Michael Khalilian, chairman and president at the IMS Forum. The incorporation of bundled services, traditional services, IP and broadband, all combined with mobility and the regulatory changes are heavily influencing the service provider landscape, and we are trying to educate them on what is coming, from a technological standpoint.

The IMS Workshop will examine the basic principles and promise of IMS, as well as the challenges for everyone in the network ecosystem carriers/service providers, hardware vendors and application developers. Amit Patel, chief technology officer of U.S. major markets at Lucent Technologies Inc., will present session one, Why IMS: An Analysis of the Principals and Promise. Khalilian will present the second session, IMS Challenges and Revenue Opportunities.

An update on IMS deployments will offer a realworld look at how IMS is rolling out. The presenters will give a rundown of whos who in IMS and what makes a good candidate for transition, and present case studies from the business, product and technical mindsets. We are starting to get information on challenges and recommendations in implementing IMS, said Khalilian.

The issues last year were around gateways, softswitches and VoIP, and now those are part of the bigger architecture known as IMS. Thats a big reason why all aspects of telecom services are going through conversions and changes, from OSS, marketing, product development and the architecture of service sets. Meanwhile, this has to all be transparent to consumers.

CLECs and competitors should get involved right away, he said, so they have a better chance in the transition to grab market share. Its the beginning now, said Khalilian. We have to be creative, as an industry, to account for short- and long-term demand and appetite for new services.

Concurrent with the show, the IMS Forum announced new architecture documents and a paper to provide a snapshot and summary of whats going on with IMS. It also said a plugfest for the interoperation of applications and services over IMS is slated for January 2007.

Our objective is to fill in that gap between service providers and vendors, to get IMS out faster and get those new services to consumers more quickly, said Khalilian. So were here to introduce the applications and educate attendees about deploying IMS and what the convergence issues are.