Following an initiative led by Verizon Wireless dubbed “Advances to IMS” (A-IMS) announced in July to develop practical implementation methods to upgrade next-generation network (NGN) technologies, a group of leading mobile operators on Thursday introduced its own efforts to outline the technological roadmap for networks beyond 3G.

 

Like the A-IMS group, the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) initiative, which includes industry heavyweights like China Mobile (News - Alert), KPN, NTT DoCoMo (News - Alert), Orange, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Vodafone, will work with existing standards bodies like 3GPP and ETSI. But unlike the Verizon Wireless-led initiative that predominantly focused on the tight-knit CDMA world, NGMN plans to develop next-generation mobile technologies that will take the industry beyond the HSxPA as well as EV-DO.

 

“It's a technology neutral affiliation,” explained Steve Falk, Vice President of Global Standards at Sprint Nextel.

 

“We're trying to put down a guideline or roadmap for the capabilities of a mobile network going forward. You will notice that a number of the founding members are on a HSPA trajectory. We are on WiMAX. We use the guiding principles of NGMN,” Falk said during a telephone briefing.

 

To be sure, the strength of A-IMS arguably comes from the telecom equipment vendors that have signed onto the effort. Verizon Wireless recruited equipment makers like Lucent Technologies (News - Alert), Motorola (News - Alert), Nortel, Qualcomm and Cisco Systems (News - Alert) to develop implementation methods that they hope to standardize.

 

To this end, Falk told TMCnet that NGMN hopes to leverage its sizable influence to put forth its recommendations to the telecom equipment manufacturers that will be incorporating those technologies and supplying the NGN handsets and infrastructure. The group is inviting handset, core and radio access equipment vendors to join NGMN as affiliated members.

 

“We've already actively engaged them in two forums … and got a lot of input from them,” Falk recounted. “We expect that we'll have a very influential voice in setting standards – if you will the technical stakes in the ground – to move forward.”

 

In fact, it was the previous lack of input that motivated the operators at first to collaborate.

 

“We've felt for some time particularly for 2G and 3G that the operators didn't have as strong a voice,” he said.

 

Under its recommendations, the NGMN initiative has outlined a series of guiding principles including data throughput performance, compatibility with legacy networks, support of high levels of authentication and security, differentiated quality of service and improved terminal certification schemes

 

Earlier this week, the mobile operators formalized their plans by banding together and forming a limited company, NGMN Ltd., based in the United Kingdom. The group has also published a White Paper to outline its mission and preliminary work, which is available to members on its Web site, http://www.ngmn.org.

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.