Detection and resolution of feature interactions in IP multimedia subsystem

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) enables the delivery of multimedia services through different access networks. 3GPP adopted the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as the IMS signalling protocol. However, IMS interaction with these services faces the ‘feature interaction’ problem encountered in traditional telephony networks. This problem occurs as features invoked during a session behave correctly when processed separately from each other, but not when running together. Although much research work has explored managing feature interactions, applying these solutions in IMS remains challenging and further investigation is needed. This paper aims to analyze the feature interaction issue in IMS and to propose a new solution. We defined a SIP‐based algorithm and the associated mechanisms to enhance IMS service invocation. This algorithm is the core of the Service Broker, a new functional entity in charge of managing feature interaction. We validated our proposal through a performance evaluation and prototyped the Service Broker on an open source IMS platform. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.