VON, Stockholm, May 2006

VON Europe Spring 2006, Session 362 : It's all about Apps, Stockholm 18 May 2006, chaired by Christine Perey, PEREY Research & Consulting
One debate topic at the VON Sessions was the IMS (the bad) versus the Web (the good) . We were tasked to take the neutral application view on this. The pannel took 4 point of views :

Impacts on service providers
On-line service providers and ASPs are better placed than the network providers because services are at the edge, economics to manage service launches with few subscribers and no regulations. But the service provider mission can evolve : they can monetize the knowledge gained from access to existing user base, market bundles of mobile data and services with highest cost efficiency and open their networks to business partners. The Open vs. Walled Gardens debate is about trade-offs but all open markets ultimately win.

Open service development infrastructure
Web 2.0 and SOA technologies supported by application servers at the edge are proven. On the other hand the MNOs closed-garden have protected subscriber authentication and are resulting from 15 years of re-regulations on licensed spectrum. In that context IMS can be implemented as an in-between infrastructure that keeps some of closed subscriber management benefits while offering standard-based open IP interface to services that span multiple networks. For this APIs to IMS networks and devices should be made available to web developers, beyond SIP.

Applications from convergence
What are the services, after 10 years of VoIP? Is it only about migrating old voice/text services to cheaper IP infrastructures (IP Centrex/PBX, SMS/IM). The focus on IMS/CSCF and IMS/MRF/GW is a narrow view on the past. Rather we should we enable really new services, like mobile video, content sharing , group communications etc..

Identity management
With new services, the focus is moving from media transport to added-value with identity management including presence, group/buddy lists, location, authentication. How to integrate overlapping systems and privacy. In that context IMS/HSS becomes a useful component.. Who should be the ID service provider ? .


I contributed the following slides to the debate. Taking the view of 3G video services I found that we could use both Web service creation and some IMS/MRF streaming infrastructures.



The VON experience is also to get to meet up with old friends such as Christer Granberg and Dominique Sjögren formerly at Pipebeach and now with HP. However I failed to sense the excitement of some previous VON Europe events.