DNS - Neustar, Research Test Bed Aim to Speed IP Routing in Real-World IMS Environments

Neustar says the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group, Ireland’s largest telecommunications software research center, has selected "PathFinder," a GSMA (News - Alert)-managed service operated by Neustar, to manage complex IP routing scenarios in an IP Multimedia Systems (IMS) network environment.

The basic idea is to speed up use of IMS-based routing across carrier boundaries, says Chris Drake, Neustar Vice President of Product Management for Carrier Services. The basic problem Neustar is trying to remedy is that the normal standards work is moving rather slowly at the moment, delaying service provider ability to create new IP-based services.

Hopefully, the new TSSG effort will allow carriers to test interoperability quickly, speeding delivery of services across network boundaries, seamlessly and with full retention of all native features, says Drake.

A critical element in any telephony network is the signaling and routing necessary to connect calls and provide services across network types. A well-established practice in the legacy voice area, full IMS routing, preserving important business policies in the IP domain, still is developing in the IP arena.

Carriers will want to retain the same policy managment features they already use in the legacy voice domain when conducting IP routing operations, says Drake. In some cases there are significant volume commitments that must be met, for example, and IP routing must incorporate all of those policies.

You might assume the standards bodies already have created relatively-detailed routing protocols as part of the ENUM framework, but that has not yet been done, says Drake. The new TSSG effort is designed to flesh out the practical mechanisms in a real-world environment.

One of the TSSG’s highest-priority initiatives has been the development of an IMS network that will allow TSSG research partners and customers to simulate advanced IMS calls and services.

In an IMS network, operators require advanced signaling and routing capabilities to determine appropriate routing information, identify available IP interconnection points and gauge requirements for service-specific data and number portability. TSSG has selected PathFinder to manage the routing and signaling of these calls.

PathFinder is a managed carrier ENUM registry service operated by Neustar on behalf of the GSMA. The registry allows operators to share IP gateway information with their business partners, ensuring that the operators stay in full control of their published data.

PathFinder also provides a global number portability service, covering over 80 percent of the telephone numbers worldwide that can be ported.