For the past couple of weeks, engineers at Verizon’s technology lab in Waltham, Mass., played a key role in tests that will change the way we communicate.  Verizon, along with other labs in North America, Asia and Europe, participated in a global test of a new system that enables incompatible telecommunications services and networks to work together.  The system, called IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), will make it possible for all kinds of wired and wireless devices to talk to each other anytime, anywhere, across various networks.

 

Mark Weigleitner, Verizon senior VP of technology, explains it this way:  “At the simplest level, contact lists, voice messaging, photo files, e-mails and other content or features that currently reside in one place will be universally available, regardless of the equipment you are using or network to which you’re connected.”

 

At another level, IMS would make it possible for someone to use a handheld device to pinpoint his location from a global positioning system and transmit the information to a friend along with a photo of himself taken by the device.

 

Before that can become commonplace, engineers need to run equipment and networks through real-world test scenarios.

 

That’s why 125 engineers, including Mark and his team, worked with 22 equipment manufacturers to test 225 devices and six major test scenarios during the 12 days of the event dubbed GMI (Global Multiservice Interoperability) 2008. It was sponsored by the MultiService Forum, an industry group that promotes system and service compatibility.  Also participating was the Alliance for Telecommunications Solutions (ATIS), a standards organization that has been working on IPTV standards.  Not surprisingly, IPTV services were of particular interest at GMI 2008, where one of the tests looked at validating the automatic configuration of set-top boxes.  

 

Following GMI 2008, the test results will be published, and the industry will be many steps closer to making IMS a reality.