Sonus In Session

IMS - The Struggle to Stay Relevant in an OTT World

  

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By Mohan Palat, Product Marketing at Sonus Networks

To this day, IMS has never realized its full potential. This is primarily because it does not have a profitable business case, due to a lack of compelling and practical applications that would interest consumers. However, new business models such as the two-sided revenue model hold the promise of improving the business case for IMS.

While the iPhone App Store is often the benchmark in mobile networks for the two-sided revenue model, Apple has the advantage of controlling the customer experience. In open and interoperable network environments based on IMS (fixed or mobile), enabling a two-sided business model is much more complex and has many challenges:

• Generation and reconciliation of charging records by various IMS elements during a two-sided service transaction;
• Business and technical complexities during a roaming transaction that typically involves an IPX;
• Complexities in applying policies (e.g., charging, QoS for streaming video sessions) to a two-sided service transaction;
• Incomplete delivery of content/service – reconciliation of the two-sided charging records during an incomplete transaction;
• Other technical issues.

Please read my article in Connected Planet, “Implementing Two-Sided Revenue Models in IMS: Challenges & Opportunities,” for a detailed discussion on this topic.