14 DAY TRIAL // Six of the world's largest players in the telecommunication area have recently announced the development of 'common technical specifications for value-added IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network services.'
The said technical specifications have been also tested successfully and demonstrated by the six companies, including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Fujitsu, NEC Corporation (NEC), Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and NTT DOCOMO, INC. The specs, the companies have announced, are meant to enable deployment of data-processing functions on IMS networks. In addition, the processing functions should enable them to come up with a series of application services, they have added.
Both telecommunication operators and vendors should find it much easier to build value-added network functions through the use of the new specifications. Moreover, it seems that carriers that already went for IMS will be able to add these functions to their network and provide new services. Some examples of such services would include the possibility for a user to edit a picture on the network and share it or to convert a text message from a language to another before it has been delivered to the recipient.
The six companies have stated that they plan on getting the new specifications adopted by the Rich Communication Suite (RCS) project, which is supervised by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSM Association), an effort that is aimed at the commercial adoption of IMS-based communication services over mobile networks and, possibly, over fixed ones as well. In case they manage to get the specs adopted, we should hear more details about the possible, new services that will come to the market through various wireless operators around the world.
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Fujitsu, NEC, NSN and DOCOMO have also announced that they worked together on building a network system based on the new specifications, and that a demonstration test was successfully completed last month.