By Alon Lelcuk

Convergence that Works

Internal and external forces of convergence are taking hold of the telecommunications industry. Consolidation of local and national voice services dramatically changed the telecom landscape, as competition flourished. Now, voice and data services are converging rapidly. Soon, customers will be able to access any content or application seamlessly from a multitude of networks, using any device of their choosing.

Industry players are gearing up to harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP). As shown in Figure 1, today’s multiservices (e.g., voice, data and video) and multiprotocol (e.g. TDM/SS7, VoIP/SIP) environments require an infrastructure that enables them to be more responsive, variable, focused and resilient. Evolving customer demands for content from an increasing variety of sources will require telecom providers to engage in a complex web of collaboration with the media and entertainment, IT and consumer electronics industries.

In the core network, fixed, wireless and cable operators are all converging on a single, long-term architecture that incorporates IP and its underlying components. Timing is imperative, as the transition remains critical yet uncertain. The network infrastructure for convergence is just beginning to be deployed as softswitches continue to be installed in fixed, wireless and cable networks, allowing operators to deploy early market or technology trials. Policy management functions for QoS, bandwidth management and user-defined SLAs are beginning to appear in both fixed and cable networks. Fixed network equipment for WiMAX is becoming available as are dual mode phones that easily operate between fixed and wireless networks. 

As depicted in Figure 2, today’s infrastructure is complex and rigid. Because many of today’s infrastructures are based on industry-specific protocols, such as SS7, SIP, H.323, etc., employing proprietary hardware and software – delivered well before industry standards were established – it is difficult to make all the pieces work together. It is even more challenging to make them deliver the flexibility necessary to support today’s dynamic, highly competitive business environment.

With respect to IMS, these issues are especially significant in ensuring the orchestration of the different elements in a converged service. The actual implementation is hidden from the requester of a service, so service coordination and feature interaction are a convenient way to achieve application integration. By allowing new and existing applications to be quickly combined into new contexts, existing applications are 'adapted' to service declarations. As shown in Figure 3, “Service Coordination and Interaction Manager” (SCIM) is responsible for synchronizing the offerings of one or more application services across various service-enabling technologies and platforms to produce valued services for IMS subscribers. SCIM provides resource management and resolve service interaction at call time and coordinates among features and capabilities provided by multiple application servers. This function is critical to realizing the ultimate goal of enriched services blending multiple features and capabilities envisioned for IMS.