IPCC Becomes IMS Forum

The International Packet Communications Consortium (IPCC) trade association has renamed itself the IMS Forum – The Voice of IP Convergence.

“With VoIP proliferation continuing at a very aggressive rate, it has become quite clear that we are going through a major transition toward IP multimedia convergence and are witnessing the dawn of a new era of communications driven by bundled services, applications, multimedia content delivery, and telecommunications convergence,” said Michael Khalilian, chairman and president of the IMS Forum.

The IPCC focused on VoIP communications over broadband cable, wireless and wireline technologies. The new incarnation of that group, IMS Forum, will work to speed the adoption of IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) by providing an environment for discussion and resolution of real-world implementation issues, such as interoperability and standards-based architectures in the application layer. The forum also will consult on best practices and approaches for IMS rollouts, interconnectivity and convergence.

The forum is made up of service providers, solutions providers, systems integrators and government agencies. Members develop technical frameworks for converged IP services over wireline, cable, 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks.

“IMS adoption is still in its early days, and these new integrated service platforms must be positioned realistically in the evolving telecom ecosystem to facilitate fixed/mobile convergence," said Berge Ayvazian, Yankee Group chief strategy officer. “As voice over IP, digital media content and push-to-talk become features on a common IMS platform with access via multiple wireline and wireless broadband networks, it is critical that the industry has a forum to share best practices and service integration strategies."

The IMS Forum's predecessors include the IPCC, the International Softswitch Consortium and the IP Multimedia Carrier Coalition.

The IMS Forum www.IMSForum.org

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines

Read Comments [0]