Cisco Returns to the Core IMS Market with a Vengeance and a Decidedly Mobile Bent

| Sep 23, 2011 | IP Services Infrastructure
| Analyst: Joe McGarvey

Event Summary

September 22, 2011 -- Through a series of briefings, Cisco has disclosed its revised IMS strategy, revealing a comprehensive IMS portfolio targeted at mobile operators. The major components of the Cisco IMS portfolio are the Session Control Manager (housing access and core IMS session control functions) and the Cisco Converged Services Platform (housing multiple application layer and interworking functions). The Session Control Manager is built on the ASR 5000, the foundation of Cisco’s mobile packet core product portfolio.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Cisco’s commitment to compete at the core and application layers of the IMS market, as the assembled portfolio is comprehensive and offers operators unique deployment flexibility. While these attributes alone make the Cisco IMS portfolio a legitimate consideration for voice over LTE (VoLTE) and other mobile-oriented IMS deployments, Cisco officials also claim that the core session control components of the solution offer competitive performance capabilities. The Cisco IMS portfolio suffers in comparison to competitive end-to-end solutions in that its positioning is not balanced between mobile and fixed deployments, decreasing opportunities for Cisco to win fixed network deployments in the immediate future. Cisco also trails competitors significantly in the number of live deployments.

• Vendor Importance: Very high to Cisco, because the company has made a significant investment in the mobile packet core market. In addition to its nearly $3 billion purchase of Starent, Cisco has dedicated significant sums to the development of related functionality, such as the recently introduced Cisco policy controller (Cisco Intelligent Policy Control Function) and the Cisco Converged Service Platform (CSP). While the lack of an IMS portfolio would not inhibit operators from purchasing Cisco’s standalone packet core equipment, IMS functionality and VoLTE support are crucial value-adds that will significantly increase the competitiveness of Cisco’s mobile packet core equipment against traditional competitors in the mobile space, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, Juiper, NSN, and ZTE. The success of its IMS portfolio also carries credibility implications. Cisco has jumped in and out of the core IMS session control business on multiple occasions over the past few years. If it pulls the plug one more time, few if any operators will give Cisco serious consideration in the IMS market in the future.

• Market Impact: High on the end-to-end IMS market, as well as the mobile packet core, as Cisco is bringing a unique solution to market which is likely to resonate with operators that are former Starent customers or looking for configuration options for mobile infrastructure equipment not available from other suppliers. In addition, Cisco’s lack of product in the mobile softswitching space gives the company a technology-agnostic angle from which to offer interworking functions between 2G/3G networks and LTE networks that some operators, especially those with multiple equipment suppliers, may find attractive.

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