* Vodafone needs more convincing before endorsing Verizon Wireless' A-IMS proposal
Verizon’s joint venture partner in wireless, Vodafone, needs more convincing before endorsing Verizon Wireless’ plan to extend the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) standards work.
While acknowledging that Verizon Wireless’ Advances to IMS (A-IMS) proposal is similar in “philosophy” to IMS work already underway in the 3GPP standards group, Vodafone also believes A-IMS is driven more by Verizon Wireless’ specific requirements, and redundant and perhaps irrelevant to existing IMS developments.
“The A-IMS initiative is clearly a matter for Verizon Wireless and its partners as it seeks to bring about the best solution for its own network,” a Vodafone spokesman said in an e-mailed reply to a request for comment on the A-IMS initiative.
“The A-IMS paper includes a number of modifications to the current IMS logic,” the spokesman stated. “Some of these modifications have in essence already been addressed as a work plan for 3GPP R7 and R8, while others address architectural requirements alone and are not relevant to the 3GPP/GSM standardization effort.”
Vodafone says the A-IMS work is specific to CDMA, even though Verizon Wireless and its five-vendor “task force” is pitching it as a “technology agnostic” gap filler to both GSM and CDMA IMS implementations. The task force is attempting to garner industrywide support for A-IMS and steer it through the standards process.
The spokesman added that Vodafone is continuing to assess and evaluate A-IMS in light of the 3GPP’s work, but that it presents some “interesting ways” of implementing IMS.
Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless while Verizon owns the remaining 55%. Vodafone’s absence from the A-IMS task force may indicate how difficult it will be for Verizon Wireless to coalesce the industry around the proposal.
