Fixed/Mobile Convergence and IMS

Look for fixed-mobile convergence vendors to be avidly trying to shed a positive light on the industry after news earlier this month that Deutsche Telekom shut down its dual-mode SIP-based WiFi/GSM offering, called T-One, in Germany after attracting fewer than 10,000 subscribers since last August.  One positive development that we keep hearing about is femtocells—small cellular base stations designed for residential environments--and we’re intrigued by the concept. Kineto Wireless this week announced that NEC will integrate Kineto’s UMA Network Controller into NEC’s Home Gateway Solution and we expect other femtocell news to crop up next week at CTIA.

On the IMS front, we expect to hear some buzz about IMS messaging as carriers try to figure out how to seamlessly transmit messages between their 2G and 3G networks. Steve French, senior manager of product marketing at Tekelec’s network signaling group, said that he has seen some recent operator request for proposals looking for IMS messaging gateways. Operators are also trying to figure out how to leverage existing equipment and still transition to IMS. They’ll be looking for solutions next week that will solve this problem.  

Also, look for Intellinet to be talking about the results of its IMS diameter interoperability event. The event took place in early February and 14 companies participated in it.  According to Arun Handa, CTO of Intellinet, the goal was to make sure there was complete interoperability between the different diameter implementations. “We created a very vendor-neutral test environment,” Handa said. -Sue