The First IMS AG Face2Face Event is Here
September 25, 2007
It’s about time this happened. We’ve been working for several months now in the IMTC IMS AG for this moment – the first face-to-face interoperability event of our group.
Why is this important?
Up until today, no real IMS testing was done for the client side in any methodical way. Sure, the IMS Forum is doing PlugFest events and the GSMA is also doing some basic interoperability testing for their specification. Nevertheless, there’s no real place where handset vendors and middleware/software providers for handsets can gather around on a regular basis and deal with interoperability. The IMS AG is just that place.
What do we focus on?
We currently deal with Video Share as an IMS service that we are testing, focusing on the client itself. Not what is required on the network side and how billing is done but rather how two mobile clients can call each other, negotiate the parameters they will use for the call and share a video session between each other. We will be moving on to additional client-side service aspects as they develop – we started with Video Share simply because it seems like one of the services of IMS that will be deployed first – I believe AT&T is the first of many operators that will focus on Video Share in the next couple of months.
What do we do?
We talk once a week or two, depending on availability. Companies in the group join a conference call to discuss matters at hand. In these calls we discuss a wide range of topics:
- Drafting out our test case document
- Establishing and discussing liaison connections with other organizations (GSMA, IMS Forum, OMTP and others)
- Scheduling interoperability events
Our goal?
To make sure that once operators decide to deploy services such as Video Share, they will be able to choose any phone vendor they want and be confident of the level of interoperability provided. This means that operators would rather take handsets from vendors who are actually test interoperability in the IMTC IMS AG.
October interoperability event
Our first event is scheduled for October 10-12 this year. RADVISION, my company, is hosting this event along with the 3G-324M AG, which will do their own interoperability testing there.
We are planning to convene after the event and publish the first official test cases document for Video Share from the IMTC. As usual, I am sure we will have some comments to the 3GPP and the GSMA that might require some clarifications or changes to the specifications – that happens when an activity group in the IMTC starts doing interoperability and places a specification under its magnifying glass…
If you do develop communication products, you must know that interoperability is important. What do you do to close this gap of interoperability in your products?
Technorati Tags: IMTC, IMS, IMS Client, Video Share, GSMA, IMS Forum, OMTP, 3GPP, Interoperability, 3G-324M, Tsahi Levent-Levi
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Would you like to meet F2F in the Holy land?
September 25, 2007
By Oren Libis
On October 8 -12, the company that I work in, RADVISION, is going to host the next IMTC 3G-324M AG F2F event in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and I am in charge of the organization of the event. This is not the first time RADVISION organizes such an event. The first event took place on February 2006 and yet the upcoming event is exciting just as much and even more.
I participated in many IMTC F2F events in the past 5 years and I traveled to many countries but hosting an event in your home country is completely different feeling. The fact that many people from different companies, countries and cultures get together in one place and work together is something wonderful but when it happens in your home field it is even more wonderful.
I very much enjoy hosting these people which I consider friends, telling them about my country, showing them the holy places, elaborating on the local customs and introducing them to the local food. This is amazing time and again to see their reaction to that. This makes me very proud in my country and very enthusiastic to show more and more.
In the previous event we visited in the holiest place in Israel – Jerusalem. This time we are going to visit in Caesarea. Our goal is to improve the hosting from event to event and so we have some more surprises this time that I am not going to tell otherwise I will spoil the surprise.
And yes, we are even going to work here between visits and test 3G-324M devices. But, I am sure that the special atmosphere and the activities around the event will ease the pressure of the work and make it more pleasant.
I hope that more and more people even from companies outside IMTC read this post and decide to join the event. I hope to see you F2F next month in the Holy Land…
Technorati Tags: 3G-324M, F2F, IMTC, RADVISION, Oren Libis, Interoperability
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Hosting an Interoperability Event
July 15, 2007
By Oren Libis
It is now final. My company will be hosting the next face-to-face interoperability event for the 3G-324M activity group on October 8-12, 2007. It has been a bit over a year since we hosted our last event and it seems like I am getting the hang of it.
As we are planning our next event, there is this shopping list of issues that we will be taking into consideration:
- Location
Need to find a big enough place to accommodate the group. A table for each company, with some space between them. - 3G coverage
We have to make sure that there is good 3G coverage in the location of the event and that it can hold a capacity of 10 or more video calls simultaneously. - ISDN lines
BRI and PRI. There are those that don’t have direct access to the 3G network, or those companies that would like to test their gateways, so we need to provide ISDN access as well. - Connectivity of 3G and ISDN
Now that there are two separate networks (3G and ISDN), we must check that you can call from one to the other and vice versa. - Wireless LAN
Everyone wants to use the internet during this week. Might as well provide good access to it. - Lunch
The army walks on his stomach and engineers can’t think without sugar. We have to make arrangements for lunch each day – in different restaurants, with English menus. - Social event
We’re hosting the event, so we need to give people some good time. Last year it was Jerusalem – this time it is still open. Any suggestions?
There are additional issues such as banners for the event, visa invitations, and restaurants for the evenings…
This event is definitely going to be around MONA call setup time, H.264 video codec and AMR-WB speech codec again, but I have a pretty good feeling that these should go even better than the last time for our group. I can’t wait to meet all of the guys here in Israel!
Technorati Tags: 3G-324M, Interoperability, MONA, RADVISION, Oren Libis
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By Kfir Pravda
Next week, at VON Europe, I will moderate an exciting panel about the influence of IMS on the business of enterprise communication vendors. The panel will take place at the exhibition theater, 12th of June, at 1145. The panel will cover, among other issues:
1. The evolving needs of enterprise customers
2. The way IMS opens the enterprise communication market for operators
3. Business strategies and positioning of different market players
Our panelists include:
Stefan Karapetkov, Sr. Techinal Advisor, Polycom
Edmond Osstyn, Business Development Director, IMS Applications, Alcatel-Lucent
Adi Paz, Sr. Director, Products and Marketing, Radvision
Technorati Tags: IMS, VONEUROPE07, Polycom, Alcatel-Lucent, Radvision, Kfir Pravda, Strategy, Enterprise communication, carriers, operators
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My Mother Uses Skype - Why Bother With Standards?
April 15, 2007
By Kfir Pravda
A panel discussion from Spring VON 2007 in San Jose, California, exploring the question of the advantages of open standards vs. proprietary software in the world of VoIP deployments. With the runaway success of Skype, members of IMTC and one brave Skype employee ask, why bother with standards?
Moderator: Anatoli Levine - Sr. Director, Software Support and Services, RADVISION
Jonathan Christensen - Sr. Director, Skype
Håkon Dahle - Chief Technologist, TANDBERG
Kfir Pravda - President, Pravda Marketing Services
Peter Saint-Andre - Director of Standards, Jabber Inc.
Shantanu Sarkar - Sr. Manager, Cisco Systems
Chris Steck - Director of Technology Strategy, RealNetworks
Until video becomes personal
March 22, 2007
When you are at such an exciting technology conference as VON is, of course the desire is to see and hear every talk – and of course, it doesn’t work like this, especially considering RADVISION booth duties and IMTC promotion and networking. But I was very happy that I managed to attend Zohar Zisapel talk about video. Zohar is RADVISION Chairman of the Board, and a Video over IP industry veteran.
I really liked what I heard, probably because it resonated so much with my own perspective on the real-time Video. Just to reflect back, I had startling moment at IMTC Fall Forum 2001 in Seattle, where Rich Baker, one of the PictureTel founders, said the following: “in the enterprise, Video is not mission-critical application, and voice and e-mail are”. This was something I never realized before, and from that moment on, I kept repeating that sentiment almost as a mantra.
Enterprises don’t have compelling reason to put video on every desktop… until video becomes personal. Until people will be able to use video to connect to their families and friends, there will be no driving force behind video on every desktop. And this is what Zohar was talking about and vividly demonstrating with a number of excellent video clips. The ubiquitous video connectivity is becoming part of our daily life (well, not necessarily in US, yet).
With advent of 3G mobile telephony the ability to see your kids at any time, and to witness remote events, and to conduct business meetings from the beach is simply priceless. And as Zohar pointed out, video does worth a thousand words, as he clearly demonstrated with last clip in his presentation, showing a number of short silent video fragments, which were delivering very powerful emotions.
And then there was only one question coming from the audience (and that was the question I was expecting to hear) – when 3G will come to US. Well, nobody was able to answer that question, but with all the new phones, supporting Wi-Fi, 3G and EVDO, my hopes are really high that even US will come out from the stone cellular age. Now, we just need to ensure all those technologies are interoperable…
To Standard or not to Standard
March 1, 2007
By Kfir Pravda
So you gathered a bunch of telecom freaks, rented a basement, and saved some budget for cold Pizza. You are going to conquer the world with your amazing application that changes the way people consume media and communicate - forever. Chambers is going to beg you for a job, and the guys with the funny name from Estonia will have wished they stayed in P2P file sharing applications when you’re done.
Now is the time to get down and dirty with the little details - such as - are you trying to build a whole new ecosystem, or ride on the waves of others?
More specifically - are you going to create your own proprietary protocols, or base your product on open standards?
One of the biggest mistakes is to think that this is a technical question that an engineer should answer. The truth is that this question is mainly a business and strategic one. It pretty much depends on the way you see your future - do you want to be an ant in the grass, with a chance to become the next big thing that captures the market? Or would you rather ride on the back of the elephant, with a chance to play a major part in an industry created by others (with deeper pockets)?
I have to say that there are a lot of pros in going standard. First of all, you can reduce your development time by using the accumulated knowledge of the industry. The knowledge you can tap when working in a standard environment will always exceed any amount of engineers and technology experts you can possibly hire.
Second, in case your application is based on a Network Effect, like most of the communication products, you can rely on the marketing dollars of others to educate the market. Then, you just need to find a niche where you gain cash and exposure (in a way, the “crossing the chasm” concept).
Third, you might be able to shorten the time to exit. If you base your products on standards, a company which is interested in buying you will have a much easier life in integrating your products in their organization and product line (based on the assumption it also works on standard based products).
Well, this would have been a great post if those annoying guys from Skype didn’t come with their amazing application. You see - they did it all on their own, and at the end of the day - made my mother use VoIP - before any other SIP based product. They focused on user experience, and still managed to beat the rest of the VoIP techies to the desktop.
If so, maybe the standard world isn’t that great? First, it takes ages to draft standards. Then, the standard bodies are dominated by the big players, which make the life of the little guys harder - as they have different agendas then helping a young start-up to rise. And last but not least, it is not trivial to find a niche in a standard based industry, especially for a small company. When standards reduce technical competitive advantage, marketing dollars kicks in - an area in which a small company will usually loose to the big guys.
So, here is the question: If you would develop a new video conferencing application, the next VoIP system, or any other communication related product - what will be your choice? To Standard or Not To Standard?
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We are going to try and answer this question at the panel “My Mother uses Skype – Why Bother with Standards?” in the upcoming Spring VON, in San Jose, 19-22nd of March 2007. Among the panelists are Anatoli Levine, IMTC president and Sr. Director, Software Support at RADVISION, Håkon Dahle, CTO, TANDBERG, Chris Steck, Director of Technology Strategy, RealNetworks, and the brave Skype representative Jonathan Christensen.
This post by Kfir Pravda was originally published in Jeff Pulver’s blog
SuperOp! 2007 – The Interoperability Testing Event
February 27, 2007
IMTC is holding its major test event - SuperOp!, in Jesie Italy in April 2007. The event, bringing together experts from across the globe, helps our member companies to roll out better products, after they were tested in real life environment, with competing companies. As a collaborative effort, it has a proven advantage to our members, in product readiness and shortened time to market. On top of rigorous testing effort, engineers from all around the world have the opportunity to network, discuss industry issues, and have some fun – organized trips, parties, and drinks are all part of the package.
The event is a must event for all companies and organizations delivering multimedia telecommunications products and services today, and provides unprecedented opportunities to interact and test new or next generation products and services.
IMTC and Aethra will be host to engineers from across the globe at the Federico II Hotel in Jesi, Italy from April 23 to April 27. IMTC AG leaders along with Aethra, Polycom, RADVISION, Tandberg, LifeSize and Ximpo have planned and will coordinate the event, along with the kind support of Regione Marche. Infrastructure equipment used for the event will be provided by Aethra, Polycom and Telecom Italia.
During the event, a live video link-up will take place with Andrew Davis, Senior Analyst and Managing Partner at Wainhouse Research, the independent market research firm that focuses on critical issues in the Unified Communications and rich media conferencing fields. The video link will take place during the Wainhouse Research Collaboration Summit in Berlin, an event focusing on new solutions for unified collaborative communications.
SuperOp! 2007 is open for registration until March 21.
See you all in Jesie!
Anatoli Levine – President of International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium
January 15, 2007
Anatoli Levine is currently Senior Director of Software Support at RADVISION. He joined RADVISION in 1998 as a senior software engineer, designing and implementing the company’s H.323 solutions. Since 1999, Anatoli has led a team of engineers that provide: pre-sales, post-sales, custom design and engineering services for all RADVISION Technology Business Unit’s products.
Anatoli has more than 15 years of experience in engineering and customer management, software design and development, network programming, telecommunications systems, security and computer graphics systems research.
Since 1999, Anatoli has been closely involved with International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) activities, where he chaired a number of technical Activity Groups and served on the Board of Directors for 4 years. Currently, Anatoli is a President of the IMTC Consortium. In all these roles, Anatoli is working on the development of technology and solutions to ensure the highest level of interoperability among different vendors implementing real-time multimedia and content delivery standards.
When Anatoli is not busy promoting interoperability and RADVISION technology, he likes spending time with his wife Victoria and their three kids. Anatoli is a passionate cook and wine connoisseur, and travel is one of his favorite leisure activities. Anatoli also has a 1st degree Black Belt in Taekwondo and continues studying Martial Arts.
Tsahi Levent-Levi is a seasoned product manager and system architect at RADVISION. His experience includes product management and development, project management, with a strong background in development and management of complex VoIP projects. Tsahi currently manages a wide range of VoIP and 3G client products, which enjoy significant market share in the industry. His experience includes product management and development, project management, with a strong background in development and management of complex VoIP projects.
Tsahi currently manages a wide range of VoIP and 3G client products, which enjoy significant market share in the industry.
In addition, Tsahi serves as co-chairman of the IMTC IMS Activity Group, which focuses on interoperability issues relating to IMS client applications. He also regularly participates in related 3GPP standardization conferences, where he works tirelessly to improve the standards for the industry as a whole.
When Tsahi isn’t editing his blog on how to make video-based telecom networks work, he enjoys developing new culinary innovations is his suburban Tel Aviv kitchen, or practicing Argentinean Tango with his lovely wife, a ballroom dancing instructor, while Beige, their loyal Labrador, looks on. He can be reached at tsahil@radvision.com
