IMS Will Finally See Mobile Growth This Year

The industry has waited for years for IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) to fulfill its potential, but while it is the key 3GPP standard for supporting carrier IP services, its complexity has deterred many from taking the plunge. Some cellcos even question whether its network-centric approach is still appropriate in the era of web services. But others see it as the main way to leverage the functionality of their new IP networks, especially as they move to LTE, and to fend off the over-the-top model.

Focal Points:

• This driver will finally see IMS coming into its own, says a new report from analysts at Infonetics, and progress will be closely associated with LTE roll-outs, with the heavily IMS-based Verizon Wireless as the flagship. "The watershed moment in north America will be the activity around voice over LTE and the fact Verizon Wireless will be the first mobile operator of any size committed to IMS for next-gen wireless," said directing analyst Diane Myers in an interview, following Verizon's demonstration of Voice over LTE at last week's Mobile World Congress - and aggressive timeline for implementing VoIP.
• In the fourth quarter of 2010, IMS saw a 41% increase in global revenue compared to the third quarter, and a 24.4% year-on-year rise, to $503.6m. Q4 is usually the strongest for this kind of product category. However, despite the expected fillip from LTE from this year, in 2010 spending on IMS for purely mobile services like mobile IM was "minimal", and the market was driven by fixed line network deployments, including those by mobile operators. This year, mobile apps such as SKT's video calling and Vodafone's Rich Communication Suite will shift the balance, says the report.
• In 2010, the strongest territories for IMS were in Asia-Pacific, especially China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia. The top IMS vendors were Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens, in that order, with ALU the big winner, gaining about 25% of the market in Q4.
• However, IMS will still be a slow burn, Myers believes. "While IMS may not make sense for smaller companies like CLECs and the like, as it is not a 'plug-and-play' technology, it will be well suited for any larger players trying to replicate the telephony they have today. IMS will be an enabler to transferring subscribers over different interconnected networks from different operators," added Myers.

Despite the focus on Verizon, the real role model for IMS cellcos will be SKT of Korea, which already has several innovative apps, including a voice-to-video call service. It is planning to use IMS to support many services beyond voice, including enriched file sharing and video apps.