IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) is an architectural framework for delivering IP based multimedia services. It was originally designed by the wireless standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), as a part of the vision for evolving mobile networks beyond GSM.
Although it was first designed in 2002, it started to boost last year with 3G becoming widespread all over the world.
Ericsson, the giant of communication industry, opened its 3rd IMS center recently. And it s located in Turkey. We paid a visit to Ericsson’s IMS Expert Center in November and interviewed with Yigit Kulabas, Ericsson Turkey’s ex Vice General Manager new Global Marketing Director, and IMS Expert Center’s lead architect faith Eyup Nar.
Yigit Kulabas: Hi, welcome to the IMS Expert Center of Ericsson Turkey. We can call here a competence center. One of the three IMS Centers of Ericsson is located here in Turkey. This center consists of two main sections. We would like to introduce you the section which includes especially hardware. I am leaving the presentation to our corresponding colleague Mr. Nar.
Fatih Eyup Nar: My name is Fatih Eyup Nar and I am the lead architect responsible from the IMS Expert Center. Basically, our data center here inhibits an end-to end IMS system. By end-to-end we mean this IMS system departs from single individual subscribers and extends to corporate companies that provides services and then returns back to the users.
A complete IMS system exists within our Data Center and there are also our solution partners inhibiting here. For example Acme has a border controller in this data center and Rostof has an application server. Moreover we provide an opportunity for our Turkish solution partners to put their newly developed applications on our Sun glassfish server and test them. SSM, Done, and Argela which is a member of Turk Telekom family, are some examples to these solution partners.
Apart from these, we also have plans with Turkcell technology department which will be enlivened shortly. Mainly Ericsson IMS core infrastructure is provided by Ericsson itself. The firm develops the other components, which will be built over this infrastructure, with its solution partners or simply buys them.
Ericsson IMS solutions are wide spread all over the world. If we are to give some examples; Telefonica in Spain, Vodafone Portugal, and France Telecom in France are some of them in Europe. From our neighbors, Greece has an IMS system in Hellas Online. Hopefully, we will have two roll-outs in Turkey in near future.
One of these roll-outs will be in a huge wireless GSM group’s subsidiary. We will also have an IMS roll-out in Cyprus. With the help of IMS, we will be able to provide IP based communication systems to the users. IP based communication has already started to get in our lives with the 3G. One step forward will be LTE and 4G. With the coming of 4G, everything will migrate to the IP world.
Therefore the development and testing of services in the IP world today becomes crucial.
Turk Internet: Will the solutions developed and tested here be used in other countries?
Fatih Eyup Nar: Yes, of course. Let me give an example. Done is a Turkish solution partner of ours. The application they developed took place in our catalogue. Since our catalogue is open to everyone just one day after, a demand rose from Spanish Telefonica Group. They said they would like to test this application in their own lab and then roll out in field. This was also a success of our partnering group.
Turk Internet: Also you are making some preparations for 4th generation, I mean 4G here don’ you?
Fatih Eyup Nar: Yes it’s true.
Yigit Kulabas: Fatih can you tell us about the competition we organized with Sun? It was a world-wide organization and as far as I know two colleagues, who developed their projects here, was ranked 2nd and 3rd right? Can you give some details please?
Fatih Eyup Nar: Yes Mr Kulabas, you are right. We had some students here within our Ericsson 2008 academy program and they were not graduated yet. With their newly developed projects we entered the world-wide competition organized by Ericsson and Sun. These Turkish students were ranked 2nd and 3rd in this competition. As the second placed application project, a 3G subscriber calls another user and demands a video ring phone to be delivered to the called subscriber. Simply he asks for an ad just before the call is set. For example he demands a Cola ad saying “Drink a Coke and your call will be 50% cheaper”. If the called subscriber accepts this offer the call becomes 50% cheaper. Turkish students developed this sample application. And as the third placed application, a user makes a call from his house-hold Web-based communication system towards GSM network with off-price services. This could be a cheaper call or other value added services. For example you can forward an image towards 3G, share a photo, or send your desktop to a GSM phone. This project was ranked third at the competition and again was developed by a Turkish Ericsson academy student.
Turk Internet: Thank you very much for the interview.
Fatih Eyup Nar: You’re welcome.
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