FEATURE: VoIP/IMS Interconnects and the New Business Models They Enable

VoIP/IMS Interconnects and the New Business Models They Enable

Services from companies such as Vonage that offer to reduce phone bills by 50 percent appeal to users who grew up when people communicated via phone or letter. Younger users today want to communicate anywhere and anyhow via texting, IM and chat. Because of this, service providers must now compete for their business with high-quality services that are mobile, price competitive and flexible.

Service providers are moving to the IMS framework to harness the flexibility of the converged Internet to deliver voice and new rich multimedia services; however, using one network to deliver multiple services creates new complexities and challenges in managing network connectivity and resources. Many service providers today are using VoIP as a stepping stone to ready their networks for IMS and are using session management technology to create a new networking economy that employs intelligent IP interconnects to harness the services of many providers and create a win/win for themselves and their users.

A New Order

The consolidation of AT&T and Bell South epitomizes a new service-provider order with three broad categories: access, content and transport providers. Consolidation is creating a new super-class of access providers--if AT&T merges with Bell South, it will service 70 million phone subscribers, more than 50 million wireless users and 10 million DSL connections. This subscriber base is hungry for information that content providers such as Disney and Google are happy to provide. Transport providers will interconnect the access networks with the content providers. Real-time IP peering points enable all these providers to seamlessly interconnect and exchange service traffic; they also create the network mesh that supports subscriber roaming and mobility.

The Power of Interconnects

Secure, reliable, converged IP interconnects underpin this new order, enabling service providers to use an Internet model to deliver a diverse set of multimedia services. This model also lets service providers deploy their own service delivery platforms or use an outsource partner to own and operate them and provides subscribers with flexible network access points and a wide selection of communication devices. Instead of building dedicated networks, service providers must now manage multiple types of IP traffic entering and leaving one network, authorize and authenticate mobile users, secure their networks from malicious threats and attacks and manage performance of a shared network to deliver service quality for a diverse set of new multimedia applications.

Intelligent IP interconnects seamlessly and securely link network operators with service provider partners, enterprise customers and residential subscribers. Using session management technology, these smart interconnect facilities enable network operators to manage, monitor and bill for VoIP, multimedia and other real-time sessions. Now service providers can scale and adapt in a rapidly changing market by enabling new business models and new service differentiation.

Visibility and Control

Traditional service providers, steeped in PSTN technology, must now deliver services over an IP network that lacks familiar operational tools and capabilities. Migrating to IMS requires a technology far superior to that of session border controllers. Smart session management (SSM) systems that adapt to changing business and networking conditions by dynamically managing and controlling multimedia sessions are needed to connect the many "islands" of IP multimedia that network operators are building today.

SSM systems' distributed edge intelligence and centralized management enable IP network operators to accelerate revenues by managing technical complexities and optimizing business economics. Network connectivity is provided by session exchanges that control the exchange of real-time traffic, dynamically enforce policy, measure and monitor real-time IP sessions flowing over network interconnects and supply traffic metrics such as QoS to real-time session managers. Session managers monitor this feedback and report actionable information that triggers automated or manual responses to changes in session volume, quality and cost.

A New Network Economy

Session management intelligence offers the visibility to provide PSTN-like operation and control of IP networks and the ability to dynamically connect multi-laterally for the ultimate in scalability, instant connectivity and quality compatibility. Session management intelligence also enables a new network economy where IP network operators can optimize their networks while leveraging the capacity and reach of partner networks, application service providers and content providers. This leverage enables specialized service providers to appear virtually as one provider for broadband connectivity, mobile access, information, entertainment and applications.

Sessions are the new networking currency. Network operators and service providers no longer exclusively trade in minutes and bandwidth; they must exchange, track, troubleshoot and bill according to the special requirements of each session type. This granularity is essential to operator success because it underlies the service quality, reliability and mobility that users demand.

Session management and intelligent network interconnects let IP network operators federate with one another to exchange traffic; "rent" bandwidth, services, and applications on each other's networks; and ensure business terms are monitored and enforced. Network operators can leverage wholesale VoIP networks and hosted services to quickly expand service markets and interconnect with mobile carriers to deliver the quadruple-play of voice, video, data and mobile services.

Dan Dearing is the vice president of marketing at NexTone Communications.