Today, presentations are available on-line from an important recent event, where almost 200 NGN and UMTS experts gathered in Washington, USA for an ATIS hosted workshop between ETSI TISPAN and 3GPP focussing on the issues relating to IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) over Fixed Access technologies to facilitate the convergence of fixed and mobile networks.

The event, which took place from the 30th March to the 1st April, allowed for the reinforcement of the agreement between ETSI TISPAN and 3GPP on joint work by experts, from both standards groups, to allow the further enhancements to existing protocol and architecture standards to enable the use of a common IMS core in emerging networks.

The TISPAN requirements for fixed wireline and wireless broadband access to IMS will be a feature of the 3GPP Release 7 specifications. Work is on-going in TISPAN working groups, to feed through the enhancements required to the 3GPP specifications under an ambitious schedule that will see the first release of TISPAN specifications by the end of 2005.

ETSI TISPAN chairman, Alain Le Roux, remarked on the open approach participants had to the workshop. He said;

"The constructive proposals here are very promising for the industry and eventually the users. TISPAN looks forward to completing its NGN Release 1 specifications this year to make the IMS one of the key components of the NGN that will enable the emergence of truly advanced fixed-mobile converged new generation services."

Stephen Hayes, the 3GPP Services and systems aspects group Chairman, said;

"The workshop reaffirmed the commitment of both 3GPP and TISPAN to IMS. By working together the two organizations will ensure that IMS meets the needs of both mobile and next generation fixed networks."

Following the 3GPP-TISPAN workshop, there was a one day meeting between ETSI TISPAN and representatives from ATIS member companies. Some 100 participants attended and contributed to an open and informative discussion on their respective NGN framework vision and ongoing activities. There was agreement between both parties to further align their development of a unified set of NGN specifications and develop closer working relationships.

Karl Heinz Rosenbrock, the ETSI Director General, was optimistic about the meeting between representatives of the two standardizations bodies, he said;