Ericsson Switzerland has recently begun cooperation with the Fribourg campus of the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland to promote IMS.

Reto Caduff is business development manager in Bern. His team is currently hosting two students during their 10-week diploma work for their Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering. The scope of the study, Caduff explains, is to show how Service Development Studio (SDS) can be used to implement IMS applications on a set of selected devices, such as Sony Ericsson Java phones, Nokia Symbian phones and Windows-enabled phones. The students’ results are openly published to promote SDS among IMS developers. 

Jean-Frédéric Wagen, professor at the Information and Communication Technologies Institute at the Fribourg campus, is the student advisor of the two students. He sees this collaboration as an initial step toward a more formalized cooperation with Ericsson.

Professor Wagen says his institution began implementing an open IMS platform and developed an IMS client for Windows mobiles two years ago. Interconnection with a VoIP platform at Swisscom was also investigated. That work is now expected to lead to projects on Next Generation Networks, or NGN, involving Ericsson.

“We want to establish a long-term relationship with Ericsson in Bern taking advantage of the geographical proximity.” he says. “It’s a win-win situation. Our students will learn more about real IMS and Ericsson has additional resources to prototype innovative ideas.”

Not enough time is spent on IMS on the basic curriculum at the University of Applied Sciences, Professor Wagen says. However, an entire semester will be dedicated to IMS and NGN in a master program (MSc in engineering) that will be added to the university’s offering in 2009.

“The world is going all-IP and IMS is fundamental in this evolution,” Professor Wagen says. “Our future engineers need to know more about it. We are also eager to contribute to its evolution."

Caduff says he sees the cooperation with the Fribourg campus, and other universities, as very valuable. He also emphasizes the importance of having operators, such as Swisscom, supporting the IMS ecosystem from the beginning.

“Future engineers have a key role to play in this new all-IP world,” Caduff says. “Web 2.0 and Telecom services will converge in the future and their role will be to offer the best services and user experience to the market.”

Read more about the work of the two diploma students (in French)
Read more about SDS
Read more about IMS
Read more about the Fribourg campus

By Benny Ritzén