F I X E D - L I N E

IMS and SIP Communications

New IP protocols and architectures like IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) promise to unleash a new generation of multimedia applications that dazzle and delight customers. But making the leap from today's approaches to tomorrow's possibilities remains a concern to many fixed-line IP network operators.

It doesn't have to be. Camiant's policy solution already has been engineered to support both a full range of multimedia applications for carrier-class implementations both of non-IMS and fully compliant IMS applications — over the same network. What's more, Camiant has integrated its technology with many of the leading IMS vendors. By leveraging Camiant's policy control solution for pre-IMS applications, Camiant's customers are building a strong policy foundation for impending IMS deployments.

IMS
The Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architecture established by the Third Generation Partnership Project (or 3GPP) that allows calling and communications features to flow seamlessly across mobile and fixed location telephone platforms.

IMS provides a business framework for service convergence while also enabling operators to support a myriad of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based services including fixed-mobile convergence — an approach designed to dissolve boundaries between calling environments. (Think of having a uniform suite of calling services regardless of whether you're calling from your office or on the road from a single phone.) IMS also includes specifications for handing calls off from the mobile environment to the fixed environment — or vice versa — with no user involvement. So when you walk inside your office while continuing a phone call you began in the parking lot, thanks to IMS your dialogue will continue uninterrupted even as you migrate across the two platforms.  

Suitable for both mobile and fixed-communications services, IMS uses open-standard Internet Protocols to effectively merge the Internet with the world of mobile phones and associated resources. Camiant is working with leading telecommunications providers to apply QoS conditions within the IMS framework that imbue these new bridged-network offerings with unmatched reliability.

Finally, Camiant isn't just responding to the new era of standards, it's helping to craft them. Camiant is active in driving standards for policy control as they relate to IMS.

SIP
The underlying technology for a new generation of IP voice services is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a call-signaling protocol standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Legions of telephony hardware and software companies are developing SIP-based products and services, raising expectations for calling features and mobility at significantly lower price points.

SIP serves as the signaling protocol by which a voice call, or "session", is initiated, established and terminated over an IP network. SIP lets two devices — telephones or personal computers, for example — "talk" to each other. SIP can be used to initiate text, voice, video or any other kind of IP sessions between two end-points. That means any infrastructure deployed to roll out a VoIP service can be leveraged for other rich media applications such as instant messaging, games or video telephony. As a result, SIP developers are creating services far more compelling than simple local and long distance service.

Attractive new features include instant messaging, voice and video conferencing, unified text and voice messaging, Web click-to-dial capability, push-to-talk features and more. To achieve their ultimate promise, all of them require a stateful network policy and prioritization platform. Like Camiant.

They're only three letters each, but they express powerful communications concepts. Here are some of the possibilities unleashed by IMS and SIP architectures. And made better by Camiant.

Click here for examples of IMS and SIP applications powered by Camiant, including video telephony, video-enabled instant messaging and VoIP telephony