GMI 2006 Makes Major Step Towards IMS-compliant NGNs

It was announced today that the eagerly awaited Global MSF
Interoperability event - GMI 2006 - was off to an auspicious start
with over 500 test engineers and support staff engaged around the
clock in a massive 'real network' trial spanning 3 continents and 4
countries. GMI 2006 - the third in a series of major interoperability
events organized by the MSF in the past four years and building on the
success of GMI 2002 and GMI 2004 - marks the culmination of 18 months
of intensive planning and preparation. BT/ Vodafone, Verizon, Korea
Telecom/ETRI and NTT Japan together with the University of New
Hampshire Interoperability Labs (UNH-IOL) are hosting this globally
networked major event. GMI 2006, which is sponsored by Nortel, is
recognized as critically important to carriers and vendors committed
to implementing IMS-based infrastructure elements in real world
networks.

"All eyes are now on the results of GMI 2006" commented Camille
Mendler, VP, Telecommunications Strategies, Yankee Group. "GMI 2006 is
the world's first global interoperability event for IMS and Fixed
Mobile Convergence. Leading industry players are signaling their
commitment by contributing thousands of man hours to this multi-vendor
endeavor. There's no doubt that the outcome of GMI 2006 will
accelerate the cost effective deployment and procurement of new
network technologies such as IMS. Key to this is the MultiService
Forum's insistence on global co-operation and practical test
scenarios."

"It will take time to distill the conclusions of a test as complex
as this" commented Roger Ward, President of the MSF and Office of the
CTO, British Telecom. "However, using a new real time test data
capture tool developed by the MSF specifically for this event, we are
confident that we will be able to release the full report on Dec 1st
2006 at NetEvents Global Press Summit in Hong Kong - right before ITU
World Telecom."

Kari Revier from UNH, the Project Coordinator for this global
test, gave some additional facts on the scale of this operation: "We
have 26 participating vendors who have submitted 197 network devices
to a total of 98 test cases spread over 8 distinct scenarios, ranging
from a nomadic subscriber in a single domain to a full scale test
including value added services and roaming over multiple domains,
including both MSF R3 and 'pure IMS' networks. And with each
deployment scenario having its own documentation, this all adds up to
nearly one thousand pages of detailed test specifications to be worked
through in the 288 hours before October 27th."

The host sites at BT/Vodafone, KT, NTT, Verizon and UNH-IOL
provide facilities for participating companies to install , test and
monitor their products performance. In the case of BT 's Adastral Park
Laboratories in the UK, 40 to 50 test engineers are on-site from 16
companies - even though in some cases the equipment is simply
installed on-site and managed remotely. The test engineers at the
various sites are typically supported by R&D staff at their parent
companies, bringing the total estimated involvement in this event to
well over 500 staff worldwide.

"Finding out what works well, and equally importantly what doesn't
work so well, allows the industry to focus its efforts and accelerate
the development of IMS compliant NGNs. You can't beat the value of
learning from a live globally networked testing environment such as
this" concluded Roger Ward." As GMI 2006 draws to a close, I'd like to
thank all the people and organizations who have put so much into this
project; the engineers working 18-hour days in the GMI labs; the R&D
teams supporting the onsite engineers; the project administrators;
Nortel, for their sponsorship; and BT Global Services and the global
academic networks Abilene, APAN-JP, GEANT, GEMnet, JANET and KOREN,
for their generous provision of network connectivity. Without this
support, GMI 2006 would not have been possible."

About The MultiService Forum

The MultiService Forum is a global association of service
providers and system suppliers committed to developing and promoting
open-architecture, multiservice switching systems. 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, and encouraging input to
appropriate national and international standards bodies. For more
information about the MSF and its members, visit the MSF web site at .

About GMI 2006

GMI 2006 is the industry's only multinational, distributed,
interactive test bed to verify key interoperability aspects of NGN/IMS
implementations. It brings together a global network of carriers and
vendors to test the interoperability of IMS-based infrastructure
components in a real-world setting. Providing a test-bed for the full
spectrum of hardware, processes and services needed to assemble an
effective next-generation delivery platform, GMI 2006 amounts to a
massive 'real network' trial of the MSF IMS (IP Multimedia
System)-compatible Release 3 architecture announced by the MSF on
September 12th, 2006. The test program embraces such topics as roaming
across multiple network types (including cellular and WiFi), QoS
issues (including session border control and bandwidth management),
and interoperability with 3GPP release 4 in real-world deployment
scenarios that explicitly include first-generation VoIP SoftSwitches,
PSTN interworking and evolution to a true IMS network.