Summary

International mobile telecommunications (IMT) and IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) are some of the technologies that have been developed to adequately respond to the demand for versatile telecommunication service offerings. The current demands include; high bit rates, high quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE), mobility, international (roaming) capability for multimedia services, compatibility (backward and forward), affordability, easy to use end user terminals and security, among others. Fundamentally, these networks are ubiquitous in nature and are based on Internet protocol (IP).

Developed countries have quickly implemented IMT in almost all their networks and the majority has also implemented IMS. Developing countries are much slower in implementing IMT and IMS. In this Supplement, information on the slow of IMT and IMS in developing countries is highlighted and some suggestions are made to overcome the challenges.

Supplement 66 to ITU-T Q-series Recommendations is limited to providing advisory information, especially to developing countries, on the requirements for migration to IMT and IMS, challenges to migration and some scenarios of migration to IMT and IMS drawn from feedback from developing countries.