The end user's appetite for integrated and multimedia service experience, based on seamless broadband connectivity anytime & anywhere, is fast increasing. With the decline in the legacy service revenues and increased competition, network operators face an unprecedented challenge today. How to boost ARPU, reduce churn and deliver converged service experience to the end user? Cost reduction, service innovation and new profitable ecosystem will be the key strategies for network operators.

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) has promised to provide a cost-effective innovation tool-box to the network operators for fast delivery of innovative multimedia services. IMS also offers the best available technology for fixed and mobile core network convergence over IP. More and more Network Operators have concluded that IMS is the ideal architecture for optimized delivery of legacy voice based services as well as new multimedia services.

IMS based services has opened up significant market opportunities for both fixed and mobile operators. For the fixed operators, IMS offers the solution for legacy switching network consolidation as well as offer multimedia telephony and rich service experience to the broadband users. In the mobile domain, CS domain consolidation by Mobile SoftSwitches has successful reduced the high OPEX and mobile operators are deploying IMS for providing rich multimedia and combinational services to supplement the CS domain services. Integrated operators stand to benefit the most from IMS, by being able to unify the session control layer and service platforms for both fixed and mobile users.

Rich multimedia services based on CSI (Combined circuit switched calls and IMS sessions) technology enable the mobile operators to leverage the CS domain efficiency for"realtime" voice and provide a rich integrated IP based service experience by adding non/near realtime components over the IP network through IMS control. With the evolution from CSI Phase 1 (End to End mode) to CSI Phase 2 (End to Gateway mode) a more rich multimedia service experience can be delivered across fixed and mobile terminals. Examples of CSI based services include Video Sharing, Rich Call and Conferencing, Multimedia Calling ID and Multimedia Ringback Tone etc.

VCC (Voice Call Continuity) is an example of FMC service that promises to truly enrich the end user's service experience. With the use of dual-mode handsets (Wi-Fi/2G/3G), unique number and seamless handover between cellular and Wi-Fi networks, end users can enjoy improved connectivity. This service has appeal for both residential and enterprise markets. Many early implementations based on UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) technology (like BT Fusion, Orange unik) have already hit the market successfully. With adoption of IMS, most of these operators are now looking at IMS based VCC solution as a more efficient approach for large scale expansion of FMC services.

IMS based new service network promises to blur the traditional boundaries between the IT and communication industry. FMC has become one of the strategic new initiatives of the global communication industry. Most of the operators are defining milestones for integration of their fixed and mobile businesses. It is quite evident that changing face of communication landscape requires business model transformation as well as the network transformation to achieve the cost optimizations. Multi-play service bundles have proven to be the most effective tool to reduce customer churn. Network operators face the challenge of delivering these discounted bundles in a profitable manner. The key would be to adapt to the changing environment and design the future network to obtain more profitability from new services. IMS offers the right answer to all these challenges in an open and standards based framework.

Huawei has been working closely with network operators to analyze their specific market and network conditions. This has resulted in an optimized end to end IMS solution as well as a growing list of partners for unlimited innovation. With continuous innovation and customer focus, Huawei has fully embraced IMS as the foundation for the core network evolution and helping operators take the right steps in their business and network transformation.