February 24, 2008

[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

Huaweis Global Success and its Impact on the Evolution of IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and Softswitch*
By William A. Foster Arizona State University wafoster@asu.edu 520-440-0 0! "#$is %a%er will &e su&mitted to t$e '# in ($ina tra)* at t$e Ameri)an (onferen)e on 'nformation Systems +A,('S200 . .lease do not )ir)ulate wit$out %ermission of t$e aut$or.

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Chinas Huawei Technologies Company Ltd. (Huwei Jshu Yuxin Gngs) is rapidly becoming one of the worlds largest telecom manufacturers. For example Huawei is the worlds largest supplier of !oftswitch products the software based solution that is the bac"bone for #o$% switching and is also being used in mixed %!T& and #o$% networ"s. Huawei also plays a leading role in the standards committees for de'eloping &ext (eneration &etwor" (&(&) solutions and has o'er )** engineers wor"ing on international standard committee bodies. +ne of the core technologies of &(& is a group of standards grouped together under the title of $,! ($% ,ultimedia !ubsystem) that ma"es possible multimedia solutions across a wide number of platforms- cell phone (both (!, and C.,/) land lines and tele'ision. Huaweis mar"eting literature lays out a growth path from !oft!witch to $,!0 howe'er this paper argues that proprietary middle ware and /%$s (/pplication %rogramming $nterfaces) such as Huaweis are here to stay.
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China Huawei &(& $,! !oft!witch

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Huawei Technologies Company Ltd. had re'enues 1!2 34 billion in 5**6 a 789 increase from 5**4 (see Table 3) (Huawei 5**6a). +ptical :eywhole (5**;) rates it as the fourth largest supplier of communications e<uipment and possibly the largest outside &orth /merica. Huawei is one of the worlds largest supplier of softswitch the software based solution for switching within and between #o$% ((!, C.,/ =iFi =i,ax and others) and %!T& networ"s ($n>!tat 5**6). Huaweis ran"ing among softswitch pro'iders is determined by whether you are counting the global number of users

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[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

supported or whether you are using total softswitch re'enues. ?ecause China ,obile the largest #o$% networ" in the world uses Huaweis !oft!witch Huawei garners first place in terms of number of users supported globally.

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Huawei is a leader in the de'elopment of a new regime of telecommunications standards that fall under the rubric of &(& (&ext (eneration &etwor"s). Huawei acti'ely participates in ;) international standardi@ation organi@ations including $T1 )(%%)(%%5+,/AT!$ and $ATF (Huawei 5**6b). $t often plays a leadership role in these organi@ations and chairs many of their wor"ing groups. /t the core of &(& is a group of standards "nown as $,! ($% ,ultimedia !ubsystem). The goal of $,! is to pro'ide a switching system for multimedia that can support <uality of ser'ice to applications regardless of the platform (%!T& Tele'ision wireless or others). The $,! standards dri'en primarily by )(%% represent an immense amount of wor" to de'elop standards that allow any telecommunications platform to communicate with any other platform ()(%% 5**;). $,! has been one of the hottest bu@@ words in telecommunications o'er the past fi'e years as it is en'isioned as the basis for a wide range of applications that the telecommunications carriers can sell in addition to raw bandwidth. These applications include presence chat push to tal" and others. 1nfortunately for the telecommunications carriers companies li"e !"ype ha'e been able to pro'ide low cost alternati'es to these ser'ices by building intelligence at the edge of telecommunications infrastructure. The $,! standards efforts ha'e also been stymied by the difficulty of writing

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[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

application standards that wor" o'er $,! because of the complexity of writing standards that all sta"eholders at this le'el can buy into.
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!oftswitch is a solution that replaces hardware telecommunications switchboards (such as ones based on !!6) with software based solutions that run on computers. 5 /s such they ta"e up much less space are easily customi@able and cost significantly less. !oftswitches are being chosen by telecommunications companies particularly who are trying to build on legacy systems. !oftswitch is conceptuali@ed as ha'ing a Call /gent and a ,edia (ateway (,() (see Figure 3). The !oftwirtch Call /gent is responsible for signaling call ser'ices and routing. / Call /gent may control se'eral different ,edia (ateways. ,edia (ateways can ha'e interfaces for connecting different types of transport protocols such as $% ($nternet %rotocol) and the %!T& transport protocols. The Call /gent and ,edia /gent communicate 'ia the $ATFs !$% (!ession $nitiation %rotocol) standard which is responsible for setting up and tearing down 'oice and 'ideo calls.

Figure 3 The position of !oft!witch in the networ" (Huawei 5**3)

The Call /gent pro'ides ser'ices that we are familiar from %+T! (%lain +ld Telephone !er'ice) such as dialing a number causing a phone to ring and pro'iding a busy signal. =ith !oftswitch howe'er it is possible to customi@e a users communication experience. For example a user could decide to ha'e his number ring to his landline then to his secretarys
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$n this document we use the capitali@ed B!oft!witchC for Huaweis proprietary softswitch offering and BsoftswitchC for generic solutions pro'ided by all 'endors.
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[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

land line then to his mobile phone and then to 'oice mail. !oftswitch offers the opportunity to customi@e each users experience something that is not possible with a hard wired switch.
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Huawei is also part of an effort to de'elop softswitch standards at the $nternational Telecommunications 1nion ($T1). Figure 5 shows the role of the $T1s H.57; to set up calls between the media gateway and the media gateway

controller. Huaweis !oft!witch also supports $!1% which it uses to setup calls with the %!T&. H)5) is also supported which is a group of products that lin"s audio 'ideo into the !oft!wtich.

Figure 5 The architecture of a general !oft!witch (Huawei 5**3)

The challenge of this standards effort is to "eep pace with the rapid e'olution of !oftswitch as 'endors of proprietary softswitch solutions rapidly inno'ate. Huawei itself has become "nown for pro'iding at a relati'ely low cost

customi@ation of its !oft!witch application to meet the needs of indi'idual telecommunications pro'iders. $t should be noted that in Figure 5 between the international communications standards and the Communication Control there is what is called a B!uper %rotocolC. This B!uper %rotocolC is middleware that is proprietary to Huawei.

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[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

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$t is widely recogni@ed that companies can by ha'ing their /%$s (/pplication %rogramming $nterfaces) a "e#a!$ standard they can de'elop a significant competiti'e ad'antage o'er their ri'als. (!hapiro and #arian 3DDD) For instance &AC had a large ad'antage o'er ,icrosoft in Eapan in the mid>3DD*s in terms of .+! based applications. Howe'er this ad'antage was neutrali@ed by the introduction and acceptance of ,icrosoft =indows /%$s as a "e#a!$ standard in between applications and .+! (=est and .edric" 5***). !ince /%$s in the softswitch world are proprietary the company which has its /%$s adopted by third party application de'elopers will ha'e a huge competiti'e ad'antage.
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Huaweis mar"eting strategy is to pro'ide a state of the art !oft!witch solution to its customers with the understanding that there will be an upgrade path to $,! if and when it becomes a reality (Huawei 5**;c). $n this scenario Huaweis !oft!witch will e'ol'e into $,!s /(CF (/ccess (ateway Control Function) and ,(CF (,edia (ateway Control Function). $,! li"e softswitch uses !$% to set up and tear down multimedia sessions. $,! also pro'ides a mechanism for pro'iding and selling <uality of ser'ice. This is important if telecommunications pro'iders want to pro'ide users with the type of experience that they ha'e come to expect from the %!T& and be able to charge them for this ser'ice .

$n a world in which there is significant uncertainty about whether (!, =C.,/ =i,ax =ifi will become the underlying communications technology $,! holds the promise of ma"ing the underlying communications technology irrele'ant to users. $,! allow users to roam between different technologies without e'en a disconnect.
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Though Huaweis mar"eting strategy is to promote $,! its !oft!witch pro'ides many features that ha'e not been standardi@ed through )(%%s $,! standard ma"ing. $t is our argument that $,! will ne'er catch up with the features and flexibility offered by Huaweis !oft!witch. $n addition because Huaweis cost of customi@able programming is significantly less than that faced by =estern companies such as Cisco /lcatel>Lucent &o"ia and Aricson it can be predicted that Huawei will continue to be at the leading edge of softswitch e'olution and customi@ation.

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February 24, 2008 ,I%I'(MI$S ') H* ,EI1

[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

Tapscott and =illiams (5**;) argue that o'er the past couple years companies that are succeeding are opening themsel'es up to rapid large>scale distributed inno'ation in which the boundaries between a company and its customers is disappearing. They point to $?,s !/% and %roctor and (ambles willingness to allow outsiders access to core

technologies. !/% for example has published /%$s (/d'anced %rogramming $nterfaces) to its best>selling AF% solutions. Huawei also pro'ides /%$s to its !oft!witch technology to allow third parties to write applications that can run on top of Huaweis !oft!witch solution. Companies ha'e the potential to ta"e ad'antage of this opportunity to car'e out their own niche in the global telecommunications infrastructure by collaborating with Huawei. The <uestion remains as to whether outside companies can out>inno'ate Huaweis own 'ast team of low>cost and highly talented programmers. $n the $,! space Huawei has o'er 3** partners who ha'e built applications on its $,! solution. /s Huaweis $,! and !oft!witch offerings con'erge it will become apparent whether Huawei will embrace open systems li"e $?, or "eep its inno'ation for all practical purposes proprietary. This is not to imply that Huaweis !oft!witch will not incorporate all

rele'ant international standards only that at its heart !oft!witch and its /%$s are proprietary.
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Chinas bureaucrats in ?eiGing ha'e become con'inced that participating on international standards committees is the way for China to achie'e the high margins associated with /merican companies such as ,icrosoft Hualcomm and Cisco. Huawei is going down this lane but at the same time it has learned from these companies how to de'elop a sustainable competiti'e ad'antage. ?y pro'iding significantly lower cost hardware then its =estern competitors and ma"ing it relati'ely easy to integrate its solution into existing systems Huawei will continue to gain mar"et share. ) There is no way that the $,! standards will be able to "eep up with the pace of rapid inno'ation in the application layer of the telecommunications space. $nno'ation will ta"e place on the edge of the B&etwor"C. Howe'er there is a role for intelligence in the switching fabric of the networ" gi'en the networ"s heterogeneity and the need for middle ware. Huawei has the opportunity for pro'iding this intelligence.

Huawei has had difficulty penetrating the 1! mar"et. $ts 5**; effort to use the )Com brand to open up the 1! mar"et was stymied by the 1! (o'ernment which raised concerns about the national security implications of a Chinese company controlling )Com.

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[HUAWEI AND THE EVOLUTION OF IMS AND SOFTSWITCH]

3.

Huawei

(5**6a)

BHuawei

Financial

HighlightsC

Huawei

websi$e

see

http-IIwww.huawei.comIcorporateJinformationIfinancialJhighlights.do (Current February 57 5**;). 5. Huawei (5**6b) 3Fesearch and .e'elopmentC Huawei 4ebsi$e

http-IIwww.huawei.comIcorporateJinformationIresearchJde'elopment.do (Current February 57 5**;) ). Huawei (5**3) BThe :ey Technology of Carrier Class !oft!witchC Communicate $ssue 6

http-IIwww.huawei.comIpublicationsI'iew.doKidL38*McidL;7MpidL43 (Current February 57 5**;) 7. 8. $nstat (5**;) see http-IIwww.in>stat.comI (subscription re<uired) (Current February 57 5**;). +ptical :eyhole (,arch ) 5**;) +ptical :eywhole newsletter (subscription re<uired) see

http-IIwww.optical"eywhole.com (Current February ) 5**;) 4. 6. ;. D. !hapiro C and H. #arian (3DDD) (n# r&a$i n 5u6es Cambridge ,/- Har'ard ?usiness !chool %ress. Tapscott .. and =illiams /. (5**;) 4i7in &i!s (&N- %enguin). )(%% (5**;) )rd (eneration %artnership %roGect Home %age http-IIwww.)gpp.orgI (Current February 57 5**;). =est E. and E. .edric" (5***) B$nno'ation and Control in !tandards /rchitectures- The Fise and Fall of Eapans %C>D; (n# r&a$i n )ys$e&s 5esear!h #ol. 33 $ssue 5 p. 3D6. 3*. Oao !. (5**6) ,ain Topic P $,! !oft Landing ' &&uni!a$e, $ssue )3 a'ailable at

http-IIwww.huawei.comIpublicationsI'iew.doKidL3;DDMcidL7545MpidL43 (Current February 57 5**;).

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