GSMA And i3forum Launch Deployment Initiative That Will Lead To IP-Based Interconnect Between All Operators

- Pilots Leading to Commercial Implementations Planned with Several Operators During 2013

CHICAGO, May 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The GSMA and i3forum today announced that they have launched a deployment initiative to accelerate the take up of IP eXchange (IPX) based interconnect through live commercial pilots for voice traffic. Use of IPX creates the future pathway for interoperable voice services based on IP networks, such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE), and also provides an alternative to today's current best-effort IP interworking. Mobile and fixed operators including Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, TeliaSonera and Vodafone will be conducting pilots of voice over IPX this year.

"As we move to an all-IP world, customers will continue to demand high quality and high reliability for their voice services," said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. "By providing global interoperability, this initiative will help to drive the widespread deployment of services such as VoLTE, with the same quality of service that consumers have come to expect."

"Working together, i3forum carrier members have developed for the benefit of the carrier industry a solid base of IPX implementation guidelines and best practices," said Philippe Millet, Chairman of the i3forum. "By partnering with the GSMA, we can share that knowledge with the mobile industry to quickly deploy IPX interconnects to scale, delivering enhanced quality and reliability for existing and new IP communication services."

An already standardised interconnection solution from GSMA and i3forum, called IPX, is to be used to provide a global, private, secure IP network that supports end-to-end quality of service. IPX is an interconnect platform that is offered by a variety of carriers on a competitive basis but with common agreed technical specifications and using consistent commercial models.

IPX delivers an end-to-end managed network solution that offers openness, focuses on quality and provides an extremely efficient multi-service connectivity regime, with the principle of one contract and one single network interface providing many connections and multi-service end-to-end relationships. For all stakeholders, this means they can be confident that the IPX's commercial and technical benefits will be delivered in a way that minimises investment and maximises business opportunities.

The pilots will pave the way for the technical and commercial agreements necessary to use IPX to interconnect any voice services. The key end result of these pilots will be the effective migration of live voice traffic to IP-based interconnect or using IPX as the interconnect for new voice services, therefore providing a major stepping stone towards interoperable communications services such as VoLTE and RCS.

The initiative will also foster more IPX offerings from carriers and encourage IPX providers to expand their footprint and establish more interconnections with network operators. The greater the number of IPX interconnections that exist, the greater the number of IP-based services that will interconnect in the future, offering better choice for consumers.

About the GSMA
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. Spanning more than 220 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world's mobile operators with more than 230 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers and Internet companies, as well as organisations in industry sectors such as financial services, healthcare, media, transport and utilities. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as the Mobile World Congress and Mobile Asia Expo.

For more information, please visit the GSMA corporate website at www.gsma.com or Mobile World Live, the online portal for the mobile communications industry, at www.mobileworldlive.com.

About the i3forum
The i3forum brings together the communications expertise of more than 49 telecommunication providers, representing a combined retail base of over 1.5 billion customers across more than 100 countries. The goal of the i3forum is to develop collaborative recommendations for an industry-wide transition of voice and related services to Internet Protocol (IP). The forum's unified effort to expedite global IP-based voice implementation supports widespread access to innovative and high-quality IP-based services and applications. Please go to www.i3forum.org.