Nortel to deliver IMS presence technology

Partnership will enhance offerings

Nortel has partnered with Follwap, a developer of presence and instant messaging technology, to provide personalisation, mobility and security for Nortel’s IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) product portfolio.

Nortel will integrate and resell the Followap technology in its IMS-compliant product line. Nortel already includes — and will continue to provide — homegrown presence and IM capabilities within pre-IMS versions of its multimedia and communications server products, says Rob Scheible, director of product marketing in Nortel’s IMS group.

Presence technology provides real-time information about the status of subscribers. This information can include a range of details from whether a device is on or off, through to more advanced information about users’ availability, such as indicating whether they are on the road or in a meeting. Presence can provide visibility on how best to communicate with other subscribers whether by text, voice or IM.

Conceived by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), IMS is designed to deliver uninterrupted, seamless communications regardless of network, making it possible for interactive services such as IM, VoIP, push-to-talk and multimedia gaming to follow users in real-time as they roam across wireless, wireline or cable networks. As a component of IMS, presence technology enables networks to be intuitive, allowing users to specify their availability and willingness to communicate via the network and device of their choice.

As it stands today, however, IMS has been received coolly by analysts who say it is still immature and unproven.

Followap’s Presence Platform, called iFollow PSP, incorporates the

company’s Presence Server and Group List Management Server (XDMS/GLMS). The products are designed to allow operators to “presence-enable” their existing services and to design future IMS-based services.

The iFollow PSP collects and broadcasts subscribers’ availability and willingness to communicate with other subscribers and services in real-time. Such status information is displayed and updated through the device’s address book using Followap’s XDMS/GLMS.

PSP will be integrated into Nortel’s IMS Core solution, which is responsible for authenticating users and setting up IMS sessions using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Nortel selected Followap after evaluating six vendors.

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