16 Feb 2012

Acme Packet & BroadSoft Announce IMS Xpress

IMS has long been seen as requiring a very complicated network. Yet it is needed to support VoLTE, Voice over LTE, and many of the other facilities that LTE can provide. To meet the need, Acme Packet and BroadSoft have been working together to provide a low cost, but fully compliant IMS offering to meet the industry requirements.

It is anticipated that, while many tier 1 operators will be able to deploy a full IMS, tier 2 or 3 operators will not be able to commit the funding, and therefore will miss out on its deployment.

The joint Acme Packet, Broadsoft offering is known as IMS Xpress. It brings together Acme Packet’s Net-Net SIP Multimedia-Xpress (SMX) solution and BroadSoft’s BroadWorks® communications application solution to provide a pre-integrated, interoperable solution.

IMS Xpress has removed some of the elements of IMS that are rarely used, thereby simplifying the network and providing the functions that are really needed. However the system is fully scalable to meet the needs of the larger operators who may require further functionality.

Some of the highlight features for IMS Xpress are:

• Reduces IMS architecture complexity, simplifying and accelerating deployments

• Easily scales to support mass-market subscriber quantities

• Includes an extensive range of communications services

• Offers a lower total cost of ownership

IMS Xpress builds on proven offerings from both companies. Acme Packet provides their Net-Net SIP Multimedia-Xpress (SMX) system. This is an integrated entity that combines their session border controller with an IMS session management feature set. The advantage of combining these two entities is that it reduces signalling interactions and messages. The simplified architecture also means that Capex is much lower.

BroadSoft brings their proven core communications platform to the party. This includes BroadWorks, BroadCloud and BroadTouch. Using these elements it is possible to provide the capability for running functions including VoLTE, RCS, RCS-e, Unified Communications, Conferencing and Collaboration. Through its telephony applications servers, cloud services and applications, the BroadSoft core communications platform provides a seamless interaction across a wide range of communication devices.

“Service providers are looking to build revenue generating applications using the IMS architecture, but many IMS solutions have been too complicated and costly to operate,” said Andy Ory, chief executive officer, Acme Packet. “Through our joint solution with BroadSoft, IMS Xpress includes a fully-tested solution that allows for rapid deployment of new services in a cost effective manner.”

“For more than a decade we have been singularly focused on enabling the delivery of modern communications services over IP networks, continuously innovating to ensure our service provider customers can offer the most demanded services, which increasingly includes VoLTE, RCS and a broad range of Unified Communications services,” said Michael Tessler, chief executive officer, BroadSoft. “Together with Acme Packet, we are enabling service providers to leverage the power of IMS without the costs and complexity of today’s solutions.”

By reducing complexity and still maintaining full IMS compliance, IMS Xpress seems to offer a system that compliant while still reducing by Opex and Capex.

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