During the MultiService Forum’s (MSF’s) recent GMI 2006 event, which was held in October, Spirent Communications provided experts, test equipment and advanced IMS test methodologies to facilitate the stringent testing requirements of MSF Release 3 implementation at all five carrier sites (BT, KT, NTT, Verizon and Vodafone). This involved 200 next-generation network (NGN) elements tested against carrier defined test scenarios. Spirent’s support included test coverage for all portions of the IMS network:
- IMS Access Network – Spirent provided real-world traffic models to evaluate wireless core packet data network elements associated with FMC applications.
- IMS Core Network – Spirent simulated UE (User Element) traffic and emulated the core network elements.
- PSTN Network – Spirent emulated end to end traffic and all PSTN network elements.
- Service prototyping — Spirent simulated many Next Generation Network services.
Spirent said that its participating staff saw many difficulties associated with deploying proprietary implementations between multiple service providers. Specifically many differences were observed in the operation of User Element devices and with differing interpretations of the core IMS protocols.
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