Combine and conquer

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Combine and conquer

Combinational services or weShare, as Ericsson brands it, enable richer interactive communication. The whiteboard service is one of the most notable features.

April 19, 2005

If you are lost on your way to meet a friend in an unfamiliar city, a quick call to the person can help you out. Explaining the way verbally is not always easy, so imagine if they can show you a map of the area on your phone and actually draw the quickest way to go – in front of your eyes. The whiteboard application makes this possible. Small wonder, then, that it attracted a lot of interest at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, in February.

Magnus Furustam, IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) program director at Ericsson, says weShare is basically an enabler for richer communication. "The end user will be able to share images, live video clips and games instantly and interactively, while talking," he says. "We think this will provide consumers with a better experience compared to what is available today."

WeShare is part of Ericsson's IMS offering. By combining existing circuit-switched infrastructure with an IP-based one, operators can build on existing consumer behavior and minimize their business risk. "One of weShare's strengths is that it's so easy to add and build into existing infrastructure," Furustam says.

Telecom Italia Mobile, TIM, is one of the first operators trying Ericsson's combinational services. Ericsson is supplying the whole IMS infrastructure to TIM – including a trial of weShare.

Luca Luciani, head of operations at TIM, says Ericsson's combinational services are an excellent way to build on its existing revenue base. "We have identified significant opportunities for IMS-based combinational services in multiple market segments. These services offer an important enhancement to our current service portfolio for a range of terminals," Luciani says.