Mobile industry agrees IMS standard for LTE intro

A number of leading mobile operators and network equipment manufacturers have partnered to develop a technical profile for the introduction of voice and SMS services on LTE networks. The One Voice Initiative was developed by AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Verizon, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson. The profile defines an optimal set of existing 3GPP-specified functionalities that all industry stakeholders, including network vendors, service providers and handset manufacturers, can use to offer compatible LTE voice services. The partners agreed that IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), as defined by 3GPP, is the most applicable approach to meeting expectations for service quality, reliability and availability when moving from existing circuit switched telephony services to IP-based LTE services. This approach will also open the path to service convergence, as IMS is able to simultaneously serve broadband wireline and LTE wireless networks. The jointly defined technical profile is expected to facilitate international roaming and interoperability for LTE voice and SMS services and the quick intorduction of compatible equipment. The profile will be handed over to existing industry forums to continue the work.