Building on the success of GMI 2006, the MultiService Forum (MSF)
today announced plans for GMI 2008 to be held 4Q/2008. Providing a
global worldwide multi-vendor interoperability test environment for
end-to-end practical network deployment, GMI 2008 will bring together
product implementations supporting the MSF Release 4 architecture.
Interoperability of critical NGN elements will be verified in
practical scenarios supporting IMS based fixed/mobile convergence.
Specific service capabilities such as Quality of Service (QoS),
Location Management, IPTV, and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
will be included to validate key NGN concepts.
"GMI 2006 convinced us of the growing maturity of IMS as a basis
for fixed/ mobile convergence" commented Roger Ward, Office of the
CTO, BT Group and President of the MSF. "Of course for commercial
large scale network implementations, the devil is always in the detail
and it is here that the MSF continues to provide a significant
opportunity for industry collaboration as the technology continues to
mature. We now have not only the next of our successful GMI programmes
based on major carrier host sites to look forward to, but also our NGN
Interoperability permanent test bed based at UNH - IOL and our
recently launched Certification Programme in conjunction with
Iometrix."
GMI 2008 will verify selected high value services, such as IPTV,
that can take advantage of IMS. The MSF plans to test IPTV service
integration and interoperability during GMI 2008 to help assess the
maturity of existing IPTV solutions and identify gaps in the current
industry standards.
Jack Douglass, Director of Video Technology at Spirent
Communications stated that "A comprehensive system for analyzing IPTV
quality should take into account both video and audio quality and
should have a close correlation to perceptual quality. It is essential
that the system measure IP network impairments, content metrics and
ETSI TR101-290 parameters and include these attributes when
calculating the video and audio MOS scores."
GMI 2008 also enhances the testing of QoS control for
multi-service IP networks serving both fixed and mobile clients. In
addition, it will demonstrate important service enablers such as
"location" information. The architecture and protocol interfaces
described by MSF Implementation Agreements (IAs) are based on current
work by standards organizations such as, 3GPP, ATIS, ETSI TISPAN and
ITU-T. The architecture supports a range of business models to reflect
the reality facing carriers today.
Finally, GMI 2008 will test the interoperability of a Services
Oriented Architecture (SOA) gateway with the core IMS capability. This
will combine the rapid service creation environment of the Internet
with the service guarantees provided by an IMS infrastructure. GMI
2008 will test specific services, but the primary intent is to
validate the service enablers that will unleash the creativity of web
services developers.
About GMI 2008
GMI 2008 - the Global MSF Interoperability event - will link major
carrier labs on three continents in a major demonstration of
multi-vendor interoperability between a significant number of NGN
elements supporting Implementation Agreements developed in support of
the MSF Release 4 Architecture and practical deployment scenarios of
interest to major carriers.
About MSF
The MultiService Forum (MSF) is a global association of service
providers, system suppliers and test equipment vendors committed to
developing and promoting open-architecture, multiservice Next
Generation Networks.
Founded in 1998, the MSF is an open-membership organization
comprised of the world´s leading telecommunications companies.
The MSF´s activities include developing Implementation Agreements,
promoting worldwide compatibility and interoperability of network
elements, and encouraging input to appropriate national and
international standards bodies.
http://www.msforum.org/