In today's fast converging world of fixed and
mobile telecommunications, it is becoming increasingly apparent
that a service provider's search for that killer application
that attracts millions of customers to its fold and that cannot
be copied by its competitors (thereby achieving product differentiation)
is very unlikely to be met with success. Instead, in all probability,
service providers will have to do a juggler's act with a multitude
of applications. Each application will need to be targeted
to a niche, section of customers with features and utilities
geared to suit their explicit needs. The winner in such a
game is the one who is more effective in identifying such
niche customer sets and tracks their needs closely. The winner
will then have to keep on deploying or pulling out applications
and services that suit those needs much like an NBA coach
'fielding' and 'benching' his players on the fly. Such a scenario
though goes against the existing business logic of economies
of scale and calls for the following imperatives:
- The applications need to be developed quite rapidly to
ensure that by the time they are actually deployed, the
requirements of the target user group have not shifted to
a different plane altogether. This is also important from
the first mover advantage point of view.
- The CAPEX and OPEX required to deploy these applications
also needs to be low to enable a positive return on investment
even when only a small section of customers is targeted.
We at Aricent
completely believe in
this vision of the future and hence have devoted our energies
to designing products that we believe will provide application
developers, service providers, and others in the IMS/MMD space
the edge that they need to compete.
The IMS Client Framework,a
platform for mobile client devices, enables easy introduction
of new services in IMS networks by providing the complete
set of signaling, media access, and device management functionalities
required to develop IMS client applications residing on the
handset.
Value Addition
The Framework provides value in
the following ways:
- By hiding the complexities of IMS and SIP signaling through
its high level APIs, it allows application developers to
focus their energies on creating innovative triple play
applications with new features and new utilities.
- The horizontal layered architecture supports multiple
applications on top. It thus reduces memory costs and offers
a common look and feel across applications.
- Because of its modular and reusable architecture, with
basic IMS constructs being offered as building blocks that
can be easily mixed and matched, fine tuning, modifying,
or adding features to applications becomes very easy, economical,
and quick.
- The interoperability with core infrastructure elements
built into the product ensures that applications developed
using our product are ready-to-deploy.
- Platform independence of the framework further reduces
integration costs.
Proof of Concept
The flexibility and capabilities of the framework
are adequately demonstrated through a slew of targeted applications,
detailed below, developed leveraging the IMS Client framework.
The VMS application is the perfect example to
demonstrate the practical utility of the framework. Based
on an original concept developed in-house, Aricent has built a
full-fledged application targeted at a niche area in the Enterprise
sector that can also be extended to the Home sector. Acknowledging
our thought leadership in this sector, the application has
been recently announced as the winner in the highly prestigious
Nokia Series 60 Challenge.
The VMS is a messaging application that allows
a user to always stay connected, by sending visitor alerts
from the home or the office, when the user is not around.
Alerts include the visitor's details and photograph. The user
is also able to respond to these alerts on the fly.
The application has three main components; it runs on a Nokia
6630 handset using the Symbian 8.0a operating system, a VMS
security desk application using WinXP/2000 PC, and a VMS server
that can run on either Linux or Solaris based servers.
The Application - At Work
 |
 |
 |
Patrick asks for you at
your office reception.
|
Your receptionist sends
you Patrick's picture and
a message that he wants
to meet you. |
Thanks to VMS, in the
middle of a conference,
you receive the message
on your mobile. |
| |
 |
 |
 |
You send back a
message, instructing the
reception desk to
ask Patrick to wait. |
The receptionist receives
your message. |
Thanks to VMS, in the middle
of a conference, you receive
the message on your mobile. |
The Application - At Home
 |
|
|
You set out for the
shopping mall.
|
Mark, your TV technician
comes home after you
have left. |
Thanks to VMS, a device
by the doorbell, clicks a
picture… |
| |
 |
|
|
…and sends it to you
on your mobile informing
you of his arrival. |
VMS enables you to
send a message back … |
…which gets displayed
by the device on the door. |
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Another application perfectly geared to an enterprise environment
is the Push To Talk (PTT) based Alert application. End users
in a corporate environment use PTT-based clients to subscribe
to an alerting service. The alerting service, residing on
a PTT-based application server, can then be configured using
a very intuitive Web interface to broadcast urgent messages
to the subscriber base. These messages can either be in a
text format or can include audio and video. By combining these
with a calendar, a schedule of pre-programmed alerts can also
be easily configured.
Such an application would find wide utility in scenarios
involving an itinerant sales force or a highly distributed
work force.
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Gaming Applications
Again based on the PTT architecture, this application offers
an insight into the exciting possibilities in the entertainment
sector that become accessible because of the IMS Client framework.
The application comprises of a Gaming Controller (playing
the role of a PTT Server) and Gaming Clients (PTT clients).
Briefly speaking, the Controller broadcasts a sequence of
numbers to connected clients which then attempt a pattern
match with the unique set of numbers that each client begins
the game with. With different combinations earning different
set of points the game is an interesting race in patterns.
| |
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| Game Controller Screen |
Game Client Screen |
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The Aricent SIP Softphone is a downloadable software application
that uses the IMS c`lient framework to enable users make voice
calls over a packet-based network. The high performance audio
codecs and media management capabilities bundled in the framework,
ensure that the voice quality for the softphone is as good
as a normal PSTN phone. It also provides features, such as
a phone book and call history. A Tier I player in Japan has
been closely engaged with Aricent to develop this application.
| |
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| Main Screen |
Caller History Screen |
PhoneBook Screen |
The IMS Client framework can thus form the base
of the application strategy for any service provider. Keeping
this base constant, a service provider with the help of his
application partners can now design, build, and deploy new
services relatively easily.
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Last updated :
March 9, 2006
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