Preface to the Third Edition
When 3GPP started standardizing the IMS a few years ago, most analysts expected the number of IMS deployments to grow dramatically as soon the initial IMS specifications were ready (3GPP Release 5 was functionally frozen in the first half of 2002 and completed shortly after that). While those predictions have proven to be too aggressive owing to a number of upheavals hitting the ICT (Information and Communications Technologies) sector, we are now seeing more and more commercial IMS-based service offerings in the market. At the time of writing (May 2008), there are over 30 commercial IMS networks running live traffic, adding up to over 10 million IMS users around the world; the IMS is being deployed globally. In addition, there are plenty of ongoing market activities; it is estimated that over 130 IMS contracts have been awarded to all IMS manufacturers. The number of IMS users will grow substantially as these awarded contracts are launched commercially. At the same time, the number of IMS users in presently deployed networks is steadily increasing as new services are introduced and operators running these networks migrate their non-IMS users to their IMS networks.
On the terminal side, estimations indicate that more than 100 million mobile terminals with support for at least one IMS service will be shipped in 2008. In addition, the fixed version of IMS has made a big effort to be compatible with any standard off-the-shelf SIP-based phone, making the ...
