3GPP/NGN Multimedia Telephony (MMTel), a global standard based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), offers converged, fixed and mobile real-time multimedia services that allow users to communicate using voice, video, and chat. Among other things, MMTel also allows users to share image files and video clips.

Users can easily change the service by adding and dropping media streams, and calling parties during an ongoing session. They can also easily switch between sessions, devices, and fixed or mobile connections; start a new chat session; upgrade the session to a voice or video call; or add a new participant. 

Because of the flexibility and versatility of MMTel, many of its proponents believe it will radically change the way people communicate and interact with each other.







Examples of MMTel-enabled user services

The MMTel standard contains clear operator-to-operator interconnect (NNI) specifications. This means that although users might be served by different operators, they can still communicate with each other using all available multimedia services.

The standard – a joint project by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute/Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Network (ETSI/TISPAN) standardization bodies – is an evolution of existing fixed and mobile telephony services. The long-term objective is to phase out circuit-switched technologies and replace them with an all-IP solution.

In the MMTel standard, mobile access is based on Internet Protocol (IP). This makes the standard future proof and aligned with the current standardization activities within 3GPP, where the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) mobile access technologies are being defined. Through MMTel, exactly the same services can be delivered to fixed as well as mobile clients.

Benefits
MMTel offers many benefits to operators and users: 

• It gives users a complete and seamless services offering – both for fixed and mobile devices.
• Users gain access to several multimedia features including video, chat and image sharing.
• By choosing MMTel, operators can consolidate their networks and reduce capex and opex.
• The standardized NNI enables operators to interconnect with one another, creating global, mass-market services. 
• Because MMTel is a standard made for the mass market, it will boost the development of inexpensive devices.

MMTel’s basic communication capabilities allow a single SIP session to control media transfer. Two or more users can thus communicate in real time using different media components including:

• Real-time voice, using legacy codecs such as adaptive multirate (AMR) or wideband codecs such as AMR-WB to further enhance the quality of the communication
• Voice-synchronized real-time video transfer
• Real-time text transfer
• Non real-time text transfer (one message at a time), which can be used to realize a session-based chat service, similar, for example, to the service MSN offers
• Image, video-clip and audio-clip sharing allowing users to share files that are displayed or replayed on the receiving terminal directly at reception
• File transfer to share a file of any type. 

Users may add and remove different types of media without having to stop or restart a session. The MMTel standard thus makes it possible for a single SIP session to control almost all services.

MMTel will support a variety of user equipment including IP phones, SIP-compliant PC clients, mobile phones, integrated access devices (IAD) and gateways. 

The interworking between the MMTel voice component and existing circuit-switched voice services is crucial for the uptake of MMTel and part of the standardization work of 3GPP and TISPAN.

Ericsson’s portfolio includes a Multimedia Telephony solution built on the MMTel standard.

See also:

ERICSSON MULTIMEDIA TELEPHONY (MMTEL)
MULTIMEDIA TELEPHONY
WHITE PAPER ERICSSON: MMTEL – A STANDARD FOR MULTIMEDIA SERVICES OVER IMS
ETSI/TISPAN
3GPP


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