Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The two vendors are pooling resources to target fixed, mobile, and wireless internet providers with their IMS-FMC capabilities. |
Implications | The consolidation of the vendor market has strengthened the ability of Alcatel, Nokia, and Ericsson to market such solutions, so competition will be fierce. |
Outlook | While IMS deployments are ongoing, operators and vendors still are faced with the uncertainty over what future IMS-based services will have a mass market. |
Juniper and NEC, the U.S. and Japanese vendors, have announced that their existing partnership will now include the development of IP multimedia subsystems (IMS)-based fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) solutions for the service provider market. The vendors have been working together since 2001. Recent collaboration includes:
- The development of secure VoIP solutions for the Japanese market based on NEC's VoIP solutions and Juniper Networks' network-security platforms. This work was initiated in late 2005.
- In March 2006 the two vendors unveiled plans to develop next-generation network (NGN) solutions jointly.
The IMS-FMC deal is an extension of the NGN partnership. Under the deal, NEC will combine its existing solutions for fixed and mobile networks with Juniper's IP core and edge routers and security products. The vendors will be targeting fixed, mobile, and wireless internet service providers, and they have committed to using and "enhancing existing standards-based interfaces and (conforming) to architectural standards defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Networks (TISPAN)".
Like other vendors in this space, Juniper and NEC are extolling the virtues of IMS-FMC: that of being able to offer both fixed and mobile services over a common IP-based platform and of only needing to make "small incremental capital expense and minimal operating expenses" when deploying new services to an IMS-FMC network". In their press release, the vendors specifically mention "VoIP, gaming, videoconferencing, messaging, and other content-sharing applications" as the types of fixed, mobile, and converged services to be delivered over IMS-FMC networks.
Outlook and Implications
- Addressing the Competition: Juniper and NEC are of course only two of many players targeting services providers with IMS solutions. The joint venture between Nokia and Siemens (see World: 19 June 2006: Nokia, Siemens in Multi-Billion-Dollar Networks Unit Merger), the merger between Alcatel and Lucent (see World:24 March 2006: Alcatel and Lucent Confirm Merger Talks), and Ericsson's acquisition of Marconi (see World: 25 October 2005: Ericsson Agrees to Acquire Marconi) have all strengthened the respective players' abilities to provide IMS solutions to mobile and fixed-line operators. In the first half of fiscal 2007—to 30 September 2006—NEC reported sales of 489 billion yen (US$4.1 billion), driven by investment by Japanese mobile operators ahead of the introduction of mobile number portability as well as foreign demand for its PASOLINK microwave solutions in Russia and Asia. Looking ahead, NEC expects NGN-related solutions to power sales in its second half of fiscal 2007. It is predicting 100-billion-yen worth of NGN-related sales in the six months to 31 March 2007, from 40 billion yen in the preceding six months.
- What Services? IMS has the ability to provision new services cost effectively and rapidly, but "what new services?" will be the question for both operators and vendors. One hot area of activity at the moment is mobile TV. For operators, there are questions over the level of demand for such services. For both operators and vendors, there are also questions over how or whether mobile TV will be deployed on an IMS layer (see World:30 March 2006: Building a Foundation for the Future - IP Multimedia Subsystem). While a growing number of fixed and mobile operators are deploying IMS (see United States: 25 October 2006: Time Warner Cable to Use VoIP and FMC Solution from Siemens and Hungary: 12 July 2006: Comverse, Huawei to Support Magyar Telekom's IMS Roll-Out) to enable them to offer future personalised, converged services, there are still questions over what new services will have a mass market.