December 18, 2006

IMS Forum Plugfest Test Plan, Roadmap Finalized

By CT Staff Report

The IMS Forum (www.imsforum.org), the industry association recognized as the voice of IP convergence, finalized the test plan for its first IMS Plugfest scheduled for Jan. 15 - 19, 2007, at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab in Durham, N.H.

January’s Plugfest is the first in a series of IMS Forum Plugfests that will run through 2008. The events will establish industry-recognized certification for IMS products and services that have achieved the highest level of interoperability. IMS Plugfests are open to both IMS Forum members and non-members.

Applications and services to be tested include voice services, fix-mobile convergence, presence, instant messaging and hosted IP PBX operating across multiple networks such as Mobile, WiFi, Wireline and Cable broadband. The tests will also focus on building the reference IMS services test network for future IMS Plugfest events described in our roadmap. The roadmap’s overall objective is to provide an industry-wide validation process for IMS applications and services as applicable to the “Services and Applications Layer” of the IMS architecture.

“With the convergence of applications and services, achieving IMS interoperability is an important step toward providing next generation multimedia services to consumers and businesses,” said Ed Miller, Vice President of Advanced Network Systems for CableLabs.

The certification program was developed by the forum’s test and interoperability study group of leading vendors and service providers. The group created a comprehensive plan that, for the first time, covered IMS services and applications running on IMS servers. The IMS Plugfest long-term strategic roadmap calls for building excellent test practices to accelerate the time to market and ROI.

“Finalizing the test plan for January’s event is a significant milestone and provides a solid foundation for our current IMS services interoperability in addition to future IMS Plugfests,” said IMS Forum Chairman and President and Pervasip CTO Michael Khalilian.

The IMS Plugfest sponsors, test plan contributors and participants include among others: Ditech Networks, Empirix Ixia, InterOperability Lab/University of New Hampshire, GlobalTouch Telecom, Mu Security, NE Technologies, Inc./MARBEN, Reef Point, Sonus Networks, Tekelec, Tektronix, Trendium, Valid8, and VoX Communications.