E1-E2 (CFA)/IMS Rev date:29-03-11

Name of Course : E1-E2 CFA

Chapter 7B

Topic : IMS

Date of Creation : 29.03.2011

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 E1-E2 (CFA)/IMS Rev date:29-03-11

3 GPP IP MULTIMEDIA SUBSYSTEM (IMS)

INTRODUCTION

Operators are looking for quick and flexible ways to respond to new business
opportunities. As users expand their voice telephony behaviour into more data-
oriented and multimedia services, operators want to deliver a seamless and consistent
user experience wherever and however the services are accessed. Also, operators
need to be able to charge on the basis of value, and not just time or volume. This
means it has to be easy for operators to create, implement and charge for service
bundles that attract repeated use over an extended period. It must be possible to
deliver these services at a cost that the user is willing to accept – and charge on the
basis of value rather than time. Naturally, the services must meet user needs for ease-
of-use, manageability and seamless access – there must be no barriers to accessing the
desired content and services.

At the same time, operators do not want service creation and provisioning costs to
spiral out of control as the service mix expands.

Both fixed and mobile operators face problem of subscriber churn, and the issue is
getting worse as new service providers offers cheap, or free, calls over the Internet
continue to arrive on the scene and gain market share.

o One key way to attract and retain subscribers is to offer differentiation in

areas like personalization, service bundling, co-branding, business-to-
business relations, tariffs, single sign-on and quality of service.
o Another key way to retain subscribers is to build on and strengthen the
customer relationship so that subscribers are far more reluctant to switch
suppliers, even if switching means lower call charges in the short term.

IMS offers standardized service enablers and network interfaces that will make
interoperability of new MM services easier to achieve.

IMS is a tool for operators to that enable the creation and delivery of PS based
person-to-person MM services in a way that protects the operator business model and
generates new revenue.

Service scalability is solved by the IMS architecture. It offers support to compose

services and expand existing services.

The core of IMS is combining the best of two worlds datacom industry & telecom
industry.

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Why IMS?

Operator perspective End-user perspective General

Quality Of Service New, exciting services and Faster time to market with
enhancements of existing new services
services

Service Integration Same services available Grow and protect

regardless of terminal and subscriber base, increase
access type ARPU

Keeps charging relation Ease of use & Security Controlling CAPEX and
with user OPEX

IMS Standardization

The IMS was initially standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Projects (3GPP) as
part of its Release 5 specifications & is practically speaking targeted at supporting non –
real time services .The second release is 3GPP Release 6 & is targeted at supporting real
time services .3GPP release added inter-working with WLAN.

With the increasing penetration of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and
emerging Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WiMax) as access network
technologies, the IMS scope is now extended within the ongoing Release 7
standardization for any IP access network, including fixed access networks, i.e. DSL.

IMS Architecture as defined by 3 GPP

The IMS provides all the network entities and procedures to support real-time voice
and multimedia IP applications. It uses SIP to support signaling and session control for
real-time services. Fig. 1 illustrates the IMS functional architecture. The main functional
entity in an IMS is the Call State Control Function (CSCF). A CSCF is a SIP server.
Depending on the specific tasks performed by a CSCF, CSCFs can be divided into three
different types.

• Serving CSCF (S-CSCF).

• Proxy CSCF (P-CSCF).
• Interrogating CSCF (I-CSCF).

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Fig. 1. 3 GPP IP multimedia subsystems

S-CSCF (Serving Call State Control Function)

An S-CSCF provides session control services for a user. It maintains session
states for a registered user’s on-going sessions and performs the following main
tasks.
o Registration: An S-CSCF can act as a SIP Registrar to accept users’ SIP
registration requests and make users’ registration and location information
available to location servers such as the HSS (Home Subscriber Server).
o Session Control: An S-CSCF can perform SIP session control functions
for a registered user. Relay SIP requests and responses between calling
and called parties.
o Proxy Server: An S-CSCF may act as a SIP Proxy Server that relays SIP
messages between users and other CSCFs or SIP servers.
o Interactions with Application Servers: An S-CSCF acts as the interface
to application servers and other IP or legacy service platforms.
o Other functions: An S-CSCF performs a range of other functions not
mentioned above. For example, it provides service-related event
notifications to users and generates Call Detail Records (CDRs) needed
for accounting and billing

P-CSCF
A P-CSCF is a mobile’s first contact point inside a local (or visited) IMS. It acts as a
SIP Proxy Server. In other words, the P-CSCF accepts SIP requests from the mobiles
and then either serves these requests internally or forwards them to other servers. The
P-CSCF includes a Policy Control Function (PCF) that controls the policy regarding

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 E1-E2 (CFA)/IMS Rev date:29-03-11
how bearers in the packet-switched network should be used. The P-CSCF performs
the following specific functions:
o Forward SIP REGISTER request from a mobile to the mobile’s home
network. If an I-CSCF is used in the mobile’s home network, the P-CSCF
will forward the SIP REGISTER request to the I-CSCF. Otherwise, the P-
CSCF will forward the SIP REGISTER request to an S-CSCF in the
mobile’s home network. The P-CSCF determines where a SIP
REGISTER request should be forwarded based on the home domain name
in the SIP REGISTER Request received from the mobile.
o Forward other SIP messages from a mobile to a SIP server (e.g. the
mobile’s S-CSCF in the mobile’s home network). The P-CSCF determines
to which SIP server the messages should be forwarded based on the result
of the SIP registration process.
o Forward SIP messages from the network to a mobile.
o Compression and decompression of SIP messages. Compression is
required to minimize the air-interface time.
o Perform necessary modifications to the SIP requests before forwarding
them to other network entities.
o Maintain a security association with the mobile.
o Detect emergency session.
o Create CDRs.

I-CSCF
An I-CSCF is an optional function that can be used to hide an operator networks
internal structure from an external network when an I-CSCF is used. It serves as a
central contact point within an operator’s network for all sessions destined to a
subscriber of that network or a roaming user currently visiting that network. Its
main function is to select an S-CSCF for a user’s session, route SIP requests to the
selected S-CSCF. The I-CSCF selects an S-CSCF based primarily on the
following information:
o Capabilities required by the user.
o Capabilities and availability of the S-CSCF and
o Topological information, such as the location of an S-CSCF and the location of
the users P-CSCFs if they are in the same operators network as the S-CSCF.

The Databases: (HSS and SLF)

The Home Subscriber Server (HSS) is the central repository for user-related
information. Technically, the HSS is an evolution of the HLR (Home Location Register),
which is a GSM node. The HSS contains all the user-related subscription data required to
handle multimedia sessions. These data include, among other items, location information,
security information (including both authentication and authorization information), user
profile information (including the services that the user is subscribed to), and the S-CSCF
(Serving-CSCF) allocated to the user. A network may contain more than one HSS, in

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case the number of subscribers is too high to be handled by a single HSS. In any case, all
the data related to a particular user are stored in a single HSS. Networks with a single
HSS do not need an SLF. On the other hand, networks with more than one HSS do
require an SLF.
The SLF is a simple database that maps users addresses to HSSs. A node that
queries the SLF, with a user address as the input, obtains the HSS that contains all the
information related to that user as the output. Both the HSS and the SLF implement the
Diameter protocol (RFC 3588) with an IMS-specific Diameter application.

• The Media Gateway Control Function (MGCF) and the IM Media Gateway
(IM-MGW) are responsible for signaling and media inter-working, respectively,
between the PS domain and circuit-switched networks (e.g. PSTN).

• The Multimedia Resource Function Processor (MRFP) controls the bearer on

the Mb interface including processing the media streams (e.g. audio transcoding).
The Multimedia Resource Function Controller (MRFC) interprets signaling
information from an S-CSCF or a SIP-based Application Server and controls the
media streams resources in the MRFP accordingly.

The Breakout Gateway Control Function (BGCF) selects to which PSTN network a
session should be forwarded. IT will then be responsible for forwarding the session
signaling to the appropriate MGCF and BGCF in the destination PSTN network.

 Reference Interfaces:
The main interface in the IMS can be grouped into the following categories:-

Interface for SIP-based signaling and service control:

These include interfaces Mg, Mi, Mj, Mk, Mr, and Mw, which all use SIP as the signaling
protocol.
 Interface Mg allows CSCF to interact with MGCF.
 Interface Mi allows a CSCF to forward session signaling to a BGCF so
that the session can be forwarded to PSTN networks.
 Interface Mj allows a BGCF to forward a session signaling to a selected
MGCF that will carry the session to the PSTN.
 Interface Mk allows a BGCF to forward session signaling to another
BGCF.
 Interface Mr allows an S-CSCF to interact with an MRFC.
 Interface Mw allows an I-CSCF to direct mobile- terminated session to
an S-CSCF.

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Interface for controlling media gateways: These include interfaces Mc & Mp,

 Interface Mc allows a signaling gateway to control media gateway. For

example, it is used between an MGCF and an IM-MGW, between an
MSC Server and a CS-MGW, or between a GMSC Server and a CS-
MGW.
 Interface Mp, allows an MRFC to control media stream resources
provided by an MRFP. Signaling over interfaces Mc and Mp uses the
H.248 /MegaCo Protocol.

Interfaces with the Information Servers: Interfaces Cx between the CSCF and the HSS
allows the CSCF to retrieve from the HSS mobility and routing information
regarding a mobile user so that the CSCF can determine how to process a user’s
sessions. Signaling over Cx interface uses the Diameter Protocol.

Interface with external networks: These include interfaces Mb, Mm, and Co.
 Interface Mb, is the standard IP routing and transport interface with
external IP networks. The interface Mb may be identical to the Gi
interface.
 Interface Mm is a standard IP-based signaling interface that handles
signaling inter-working between the IMS and external IP networks.
 Interface Go allows a PCF to apply policy control over the bearer usage
in the PS domain.

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Service Architecture:

Application
Server

Home Network

I-CSCF S-CSCF
P-CSCF

Visited Network
Mobile
(a) Service platform in mobile’s home network

Application
Server

I-CSCF S-CSCF
P-CSCF

Visited Network Home Network

Mobile

(b) External Service platform

Fig. 2: 3GPP service architecture for real-time services

With both service architectures, the initial SIP request from a mobile travels from
the originating mobile to the visited P-CSCF first, which then forwards the request to the
I-CSCF (if used) in the originating mobiles home network. This I-CSCF selects an S-
CSCF in the home network for this user session and forwards the SIP request to session
will travel directly between the visited P-CSCF and the S-CSCF in the mobiles home
network.

The S-CSCF is responsible for interfacing with internal and external service
platforms as illustrated in Fig. 3. There are three types of standardized platforms:

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(1) SIP application server

(2) Open Service Access (OSA) Service Capability Server (SCS) and
(3) IP Multimedia Service Switching Function (IM-SSF).

OSA
Application Servers

MAP
CAMEL Service
OSA API HSS Environment

Sh Sh SI
CAP

OSA SCS SIP Cx IM-SSF

(for Providing Application Servers (for Interface with
Open Access to Legacy Service
3rd Party Service Platform)
Providers)
ISC
ISC
ISC

S-CSCF
IP Multimedia
Subsystems

Fig. 3 Interactions between S-CSCF and service platforms

The services offered by them are value-added services (VAS or operator-specific

services. The S-CSCF uses the same interface, IMS Service Control (ISC) interface, to
interface with all service platforms. The signaling protocol over the ISC interface is SIP.
The OSA SCS and IM-SSF by themselves are not application servers. Instead, they are
gateways to other service environments. As depicted in Fig. 3, the OSA SCS and IM-
SSF interface to the OSA application server and CAMEL Service Environment (CSE),
respectively. From the perspective of the S-CSCF, however, they all exhibit the same
ISC interface behavior. The services are briefly described:

• SIP Application Server:

In addition to session control, a SIP server can also provide various value-added services.
A lightweight SIP-based server enables the CSCF to utilize the SIP-based services and
interact with the ISP application servers without additional components.

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• CAMEL Service Environment (CSE):

The CSE provides legacy Intelligent Network (IN) services. It allows operators leverage
existing infrastructure for IMS services. As specified earlier, the CSCF interacts with CSE
through IM-SSF. The IM-SSF hosts the CAMEL features and interfaces with CSE by CAP
(CAMEL Application Part).

• OSA Application Server:

Applications may be developed by a third party that is not the owner of the network
infrastructure. The OSA application server framework provides a standardized way for a
third party to secure access to the IMS. The OSA reference architecture defines an OSA
Application Server as the service execution environment for third-party applications. The
OSA application server then interfaces with the CSCF through the OSA SCS by OSA API
(Application Programming Interface).

------ ------ ------ Application Layer

HSS
Control Layer
MRFC SLF
MRFP
Other
Home ------
Network I-CSCF

----
Home / Visited
Network
MGCF
___ BGCF ___
PSTN
MG
MG
CS domain
IMS/PKC

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Practice Questions

Q1 In the above diagram note down the missing elements as per 3GPP IMS
architecture?
Q2 The core of IMS is combining the best of two worlds ______ & ______ industry.
Q3 A ______ is a mobile’s first contact point inside a local (or visited) IMS.
Q4 The IM-SSF hosts the ______ features and interfaces with CSE by CAP
Q5. The Multimedia Resource Function Controller (MRFC) interprets signaling
information from an S-CSCF or a SIP-based Application Server and controls the
media streams resources in the MRFP accordingly.(True/False)
Q6. The _____ contains all the user-related subscription data required to handle
multimedia sessions.( HSS/SIP Application Server)
Q7.The statement that Networks with a single HSS do not need an SLF is false.(T/F)
Q8. An _______can act as a SIP Registrar to accept users’ SIP registration requests
and make users’ registration and location information.( S-CSCF/P-CSCF/I-CSCF)
Q9When MGCF shall be required?
Q10.IMS stands for______________________ .

xxxx

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