Confusion around IMS

There is a lot of confusion around IMS these days - and you know what? – it’s completely understandable. IMS can mean so many different things to so many different people, and most of the ambiguity stems from the technical angle of view. For instance, from a consumer’s point of view, there’s a popular and growing perception that IMS will lead to the “Walled Garden” approach to services/features and offerings. Brough Turner recently blogged about the evolution of the mobile application business in Asia, and compared it to the US/EU. He points out the in the US/EU, service providers are interested in controlling the subscriber base more and more, with the intention of offering services directly to the subscribers. Increasing the bundle to increase the revenue per subscriber, and make it more difficult and unattractive to part ways. He goes on to compare this “closed” model with the revenue-sharing models of Asia, where partnerships between the service providers and the application providers create an offering that is attractive to the widest audience.

Is IMS applicable in both approaches? I argue it is. I think that Brough might have missed that point. From a service provider’s perspective, it’s the ability of IMS to manage and direct sessions with QOS and securitythat is the most attractive. It shouldn’t matter that the SP, or a partner of the SP ultimately provides the “thing of attraction” – Most important is that the “thing of attraction” meets the expectations of the subscriber.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Camophone - who the heck is calling me now?

Ring-Ring, you get a call and look at the Caller ID - "Who the heck is this calling me?" Now, I don't know about you. but I have done this a number of times, and if I am not familiar with the number, I ususally answer the call. Odd, but I usually reject if I know the person, not when I don't know who the calling party is.

Now comes a hum-dinger - www.camophone.com. These guys permit you to input any caller ID you want. The initial premise was to fool your buddies/friends/enemies into thinking they were getting a call from the police or something. It's one thing to state verbally that you are the police, but when the caller ID substantiates the verbal claim - then it's gospel to some folks.

So what are the implications of something like this. Firstly, it proves that you can't judge a call by it's callerID. Secondly, some systems use calling party information for call routing, or identification purposes. For instance, when I activate my Credit Card, I am required to place the call from my home phone. There's no security in that!! It will be important to note how this issue, and issues like these are addressed by the authorities, if they can. It's only become easier with VoIP, and that can only mean abuse of the technology.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Reports: AT&T, Bellsouth Near $65B Deal

The consolidation continues. This is very expected and interesting only due to the fact that the regulators wouldn't have permitted such a transaction to ever be considered. Nowadays, with so many other telecom options out there, it's allowed to proceed. Nice knowing ya Bell South.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac