Technical Brief

Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Market Overview
The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the service enabler and convergence platform for different types of (access) networks. Mobile networks have taken another step forward with IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS). Defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) starting from 2000, the IMS extends the existing network service capabilities within a standardized common service platform for IP-based applications and services. The first UMTS release to include the IP Multimedia Subsystem was frozen in March 2002 as 3GPP Release 5. Due to the nature of IP abstraction and convergence, different stakeholders are impacted by the introduction of IMS. End Users who are using the functionality and services provided by the IMS-Network (e.g. always-on functionality, Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) service etc.) Equipment & Technology Vendors Several companies that supply the complete end-to-end system of the IMS (client, IMS core, applications/services), single IMS core components (e.g. HSS, MRFP etc.), applications/services etc. to service providers and/or end customers (downloadable clients). Service Providers Primarily mobile (and fixed) network operators that provide IMS functionality and services to their subscribers (end users) Standardization Bodies, Industry Consortia like 3GPP, OMA, IETF etc.

Manufacturing situation and overall business forecast Due to the increased demand for multi-service enabling technology and the fast evolution of 3G, forecasts indicate that the overall market for IMS equipment will increase from less than $1 billion per annum to around $3 billion within the next three years. The main technology and system suppliers are communication equipment manufacturers in the mobile infrastructure market that provide complete systems including IMS core domain and application servers. The next group of suppliers includes manufacturers and vendors of IMS-Clients. They might be integrated into the terminals, or could be shipped separately as software-only solutions using well-known and defined APIs. Such Clients can be installed on Open OS phones such as Symbian, Series60 or Java-enabled devices. We find that the basic differences lie in the system integration level, the performance and the modularity of such clients. The third large group in the IMS-Vendor landscape consists of companies that are developing application services like Push-to-talk over Cellular, Presence etc. or application servers (hosts for application services). Because there are a great many different companies already involved in IMS development and deployment, all of them are facing a tremendous challenge in securing efficient interoperability. This is especially true for the service providers (operators). As the technology leaves the early IMS phase, so that IMS core components are incorporated into operator networks, the situation will become even more complex.

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Operators Situation and Timeline

Wireless Operator
BT (U.K.)

Infrastructure Vendor
Undisclosed

Service Planned
BT Fusion (formerly Project Bluephone) fixed/mobile converged phone service Mobile VoIP

Launch Date
September 2006, announced June 2006 with 400 early adopters Technical trials under way. Deal announced September 2005 Services to be launched in fourth quarter 2005 Announced February 2005 Trial announced August 2005; launch date not yet released First two phases of three-phase project complete; phase three includes ~ 200 customer trial. Announced December 2004 no launch dates released

China Unicom (China)

BridgePort Networks*

Commander Communications (Australia) eAccess Japan (Japan) Elisa (Finland)

Ericsson

Multimedia

Lucent Nokia

Multimedia, HSDPA Mobile/fixed network service convergence Fixed-mobile convergence

France Telecom

Siemens

KPN (Netherlands), E-Plus (Germany), BASE (Belgium) MMO2 (U.K.) Netia (Poland)

Siemens

Mobile convergence, including VoIP, video conferencing and instant messaging Push-to-talk over Cellular (POC), multimedia conferencing IMS-based voice and data services to business customers IP telephony and IP Centrex for business Video sharing

Siemens

EOY 2005 first launch in two-year program Frame agreement announced September 2005 Deal announced June 2005

Lucent

TDC Solutions (Denmark)

Ericsson

Telecom Italia Mobile

Ericsson, Nokia Ericsson

Mass market launch 2Q05

Telefonica (Spain)

Converged wireless/wireline IMS deployment

Announced in April 2005, deployment of IMS solution starts in late spring 2005 Trial announced October 2005

Telemar Oi (Brazil) Telia Sonera (Nordic Region)

Nokia

Converged wireless/wireline IMS deployment Instant messaging, video sharing, gaming among different mobile operators 3G services, such as video sharing. Based on standardized 3GPP and IETF technologies. Enabled by IMS core network Video sharing

Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens Nokia

Trial in spring 2005

Telkomsel (Indonesia)

Six-month trial under way now

TMN (Portugal)

Nokia

Service launched in July 2005

Source: inCode Wireless analysis (www.incodewireless.com) Copyright 2005 inCode Wireless Source: inCode Wireless analysis (www.incodewireless.com) Copyright 2005 inCode Wireless

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

The IMS can basically be divided into the IMS core domain, the IMS application domain, the control plane and the user plane. The IMS core domain includes all the elements necessary for network registration, authentication, security, session setup/management, quality of service (QoS) handling, subscriber information and gateway functionality for other networks. Examples are: x-CSCFs
Figure 1. Multimedia Protocols 3GPP R5 and R6

HSS MRFC

IMS Technology - Overview

What is the IMS? The IP multimedia subsystem IMS was introduced by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project in the 3GPP Rel.5. Starting from this release, all IP-based multimedia services and peer-to-peer communication (e.g. IP-based multimedia call) will be managed and offered by this network domain. The IMS is going to replace all the different (partially proprietary) service platforms or stand-alone systems with a single standard. In general, the IMS is based on the work of several standardization bodies. The 3GPP covers the mobile specifications parts and adaptations (e.g. QoS authorization during PDP context activation, SigComp etc.), based primarily on protocols, architectures and mechanisms specified by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). For instance, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the key protocol for signalling. Other examples are RTP/RTCP, XCAP and the COPS Protocol. Another organisation heavily involved in standardization is the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). The OMA specifies mobile network services such as over the air provisioning (OTAP), device management etc. Services for the IMS are of course included. At this time the most popular services are: Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC) Video services (video sharing, video streaming etc.) Presence service Messaging/chat service Network games

BGCF MGCF MRFP IM-MGW The IMS application domain is the part of the network that hosts the services provided to the subscribers. These services are accessed primarily through network elements in the core domain. Examples include: Presence-AS Group Management-AS Push-to-talk -AS The fragmentation into an application domain and a core domain together with the separation of the user plane from the control plane make the IMS the perfect candidate to act as a convergence network between different kinds of networks. The services and applications are covered by IMS core elements (e.g. IM-MGW, MGCF etc.). These elements provide for separate inter-working of the control plane and the user plane with the communication network. In other words, the IMS has a built-in convergence architecture for speech and data.

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Figure 2. IMS High Level Overview

What does the IMS provide? The IP Multimedia Subsystem provides peer-to-peer communication for mobile to mobile, multi-party and mobile to server multimedia sessions/calls. Among others, this includes: Session setup Session management Session forwarding Add/change/modify media within sessions Exchange of media data Another important and unique task of the IMS is the handling and management of end-to-end quality of service for multimedia sessions. QoS negotiation, media authorization and bearer setup/management will be performed between UE, P-CSCF, PDF and GGSN.

In contrast with other stand-alone services and proprietary service platforms, the IMS provides common network security, authentication and registration as well as access and subscription to all services hosted by the application domain. After network registration the IMS provides always-on functionality to subscribers for all of their subscribed services and events. In addition, service interworking is provided for different application services, e.g. Push-to-talk + Presence + group management and roaming functionality on the service level. To prevent unauthorized network discovery, operators can hide the network topology by using the Topology Hiding Inter-network Gateway functionality (THIG) of the I-CSCF.

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Figure 3. Procedures to be tested on UNI

Test Challenges And Needs

IMS testing is required at different levels and must address different challenges throughout the whole test cycle. During the development process, the focus is on single nodal interface tests (e.g. functional test of S-CSCF, PoC-Server etc.). Then in the system integration phase the focus moves to testing groups of IMS nodes or even the whole IMS core domain. Although these are still functional tests of different procedures, they act on sets of several single interfaces such as the user-equipment-to-network-interface set (UNI) or the network-to-network-interface set (NNI) (see figure 3). Of course combinations of different sets and/or single nodal interfaces are possible.

In figure 4 part of the IMS registration procedure is depicted. Several networks and of course several interfaces are involved. This means that the test equipment has to be able to execute functional tests, simulation and monitoring on several interfaces at the same time. On the final level we have mainly end-to-end testing for specific services like Push-to-talk over Cellular or the IP-based multimedia call provided by the IMS. In addition, the interworking between different types of networks will be tested. The focus here is more on interoperability, interworking and overall performance testing from the end-to-end point of view for a particular service or for the network convergence. This is a major challenge for service providers as well as for technology or systems suppliers, because many new companies (3rd parties) are now providing solutions for the IMS, due to its IP nature. Interoperability has become a key issue.

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Figure 4. Test of UNI (Gm) procedure including NNI (Mw) interfaceI

Figure 5. PoC call flow examples 1-1 communication (simplified)

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Test Scenario - Network Elements, Interfaces

IMS Nodal Testing Summary

Protocols / Procedures
CSCF (Interrogating Call Session Control Function) P-CSCF (Proxy Call Session Control Function) S-CSCF (Serving Call Session Control Function) HSS (Home Subscriber Server) AS (Application Server) MRFP (Multimedia Resource Function Point) IM-MGW (IP Multimedia Media Gateway Function) BGCF (Breakout Gateway Control Function) MGCF (Media Gateway Control Function) SCP (CAMEL Service Control Point)

Versions / Updates

SIP-related Interfaces (Gm, Mw, ISC, ...)

SIP INFO Method SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY Method REFER Method PRACK Method UPDATE Method Telephone Subscribers

RFC 3261 RFC2976 RFC3265 RFC3515 RFC3262 RFC3311 RFC3966

SDP IMS - Diameter-related Interface (Gq, Sh, Cx, Dx, ...) Diameter

RFC 3556 RFC 3588

Cx and Dx interfaces based on the Diameter protocol; CN#24 6.1.0

TS29.229 Rel6

Sh interface based on the Diameter protocol; CN#24 6.1.0 COPS for Go-Interface COPS

TS29.329 Rel6

RFC 3084

Policy control over Go interface IMS -RTP/RTCP-related Interfaces (Mb, Gi, ...) RTP

TS29.207 Rel6 RFC 1889, RFC 3550

RTCP

RFC 1889, RFC 3550

AMR, AMR-WB Payload Support

RFC 3267

Tektronix IMS Testing Solutions

During the IMS testing cycle, one of the most important factors is the ability to simulate and monitor of multiple interfaces and protocols simultaneously according to the latest standards and specifications.

Tektronix K1297-G20 supports the broadest range of test cases and protocols, and therefore reduces test time and project costs.

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

Figure 6. K1297 Inter-working test between IMS and CS domain.

IMS MediaGateWay Interworking Tests

K1297-G20 comprehensively addresses the needs of equipment manufacturers to perform simultaneous multi-port/interface interworking tests, simulations and

monitoring between the IMS core domain and the circuit switched network (TS29.163) as well as between the IMS core domain and other IP networks (TS29.162).

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

List of Abbreviations:
IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem OMA Open Mobile Alliance PoC Push to talk over Cellular HSS Home Subscriber Service MRFP Media Resource Function Point SIP Session Initiation Protocol XML eXtensible Mark-up Language XCAP XML Configuration Access Protocol COPS Common Open Policy Service RTP Real Time Protocol RTCP Real Time Control Protocol PDP Packet Data Protocol QoS Quality of Service

SigComp Signalling Compression IETF Internet Engineering Task Force 3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project MRFC Media Resource Function Controller BGCF Breakout Gateway Control Function MGCF Media Gateway Control Function MGW Media GateWay IM-MGW IMS-MGW AS Application Server OTAP Over The Air Provisioning UE User Equipment CSCF Call Session Control Function P-CSCF Proxy CSCF I-CSCF Interrogating CSCF

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Understanding and Testing the IMS - IP Multimedia Subsystem

Technical Brief

S-CSCF Serving CSCF PDF Policy Decision Function SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol WAG Wireless Access Gateway PDG Packet Data Gateway UMA Unlicensed Mobile Access GPRS General Packet Radio Service EGPRS Enhanced GPRS UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System IPsec IP Security EAP Extensible Authentication Protocol

AKA Authentication and Key Agreement TCP Transport Control Protocol UDP User Datagram Protocol WLAN Wireless Local Area Network UNI UE to Network Interface NNI Network to Network Interface SCI Service Control Interface IP Internet Protocol SDP Session Description Protocol AMR Adaptive Multi Rate AMR-WB AMR WideBand PS Packet Switched CS Circuit Switched

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For other areas contact Tektronix, Inc. at: 1 (503) 627-7111 Updated 5 January 2006

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Copyright 2006, Tektronix. All rights reserved. Tektronix products are covered by U.S. and foreign patents, issued and pending. Information in this publication supersedes that in all previously published material. Specification and price change privileges reserved. TEKTRONIX and TEK are registered trademarks of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. 02/06 DM/WOW 2FW-19234-0