Providing a standardized and cost-efficient platform for voice, data and multimedia services, Ericsson's IMS is powering a range of new consumer services around the globe.

A report from industry analysts Ovum, published in September, lists all of the public deals with some element of IMS. The report includes 157 fixed and mobile operators around the world that are investing in IMS and the future of IP-centric voice and multimedia services.

Ericsson customer, FarEasTone in Taiwan has launched a broadband telephony service over HSPA, with a single telephone number for three devices, along with intelligent voicemail and multimedia ringback tone services. Meanwhile, mobile operator Vodafone is using IMS to offer broadband telephony over DSL in Portugal, and China Netcom has launched an IP-centrex service in Beijing.

Jan Wäreby, head of Ericsson's Business Unit Multimedia, says the news is very promising. "It's really encouraging to see our customers start to use the IMS technology and see the potential business opportunities that IMS will provide," he says. "The success of IMS is really important to our multimedia business and to Ericsson overall."

Todd Ashton, head of IMS sales at Ericsson, says the stage is set for a number of operators - fixed and mobile - to launch IMS-based services. "All of these operators have plans to start launching other revenue-generating services and to start to utilize the capabilities of IMS more fully." he says. "What we are seeing at the moment is just a drop in the ocean of what services IMS could enable."

Ericsson is currently setting the pace for IMS with 39 contracts for commercial deployment and 13 networks in commercial operation. Notable successes include recent contracts with Telenor in Sweden and Vodafone in Germany.

Ashton puts Ericsson's market leadership, so far, down to a strong portfolio of core products coupled with systems integration expertise.