Evolution of MiRingBack service to multimedia MiRingBack service in the IMS framework

With the saturation of revenue from voice services, telecom operators are feeling the pressure to introduce new services to increase the average revenue per user. Customized ring-back is one of the services that is gaining momentum across the globe. The service enables the subscriber (i.e., the called party) to provide customized ring-back tone to a calling party, as provisioned by the subscriber in his/her profile, maintained in a network element. Lucent Technologies has developed the MiRingBack (MRB) service to meet this need in prevailing deployed networks. Telecom networks are going through two stages of evolution. Packet-based services (e.g., packet services in wireless networks, voice over packet in wireline networks) are being introduced, and a unified, access-independent packet core network called IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is being developed to enable converged end-user services. In this paper we address how MRB can seamlessly evolve to adapt to changing network paradigms and thereby be enriched to provide not only customized audio ring-back tones, but also multimedia content such as text, image, audio, or video. We describe the evolution of MRB service to Multimedia MiRingBack (MmRB) service using the packet service capabilities of the network as a converged end-user service in the IMS domain. We identify and address the challenges in the evolution of MRB service and detail the call flow for MmRB. We also present experimental results from prototypical lab implementation in the IMS domain.