The Multiservice Forum (MSF) outlined its plans for a GMI 2006 event in October that is designed to serve as "a dress rehearsal for the opening night of what may be the next-generation multi-vendor service delivery platform." Global MSF Interoperability 2006 (GMI 2006) will bring together equipment suppliers with top tier global carriers to demonstrate practical implementations of IMS convergence and to address key interoperability issues before actual network implementations. The event will provide a massive testbed of the MSF IMS-compatible Release 3 architecture.
The purpose of GMI2006 is to demonstrate multi-vendor interoperability to achieve Fixed Mobile Convergence supporting the IMS service framework and validate MSF R3 Implementation Agreements. Specifically, the MSF is focusing on:
- Roaming services across multiple network types
- QoS (Session Border Controller and Bandwidth Manager)
- 3GPP IMS & Mobile Core Network Interoperability
- IP Carrier Interconnect/Interworking
- Security interoperability
- 3rd party applications and service brokering
- Network management and OSS
- IPv4/6 Interworking
GMI 2006 will use test lab facilities from BT, Vodafone, KT, NTT and Verizon all tied together over a high-capacity, QoS-enabled global IP network. The event is expected to run from 16-October-2006 to 27-October-2006 and involve hundreds of engineers.
At a technical level, GMI2006 will focus on 3 hot issues: provisioning of multi technology VPNs (Inter-site); provisioning of Value Added Services, such as VoIP/IMS; and fault management.
http://www.msforum.org
