China Mobile picks Huawei softswitch

Mobile Internet, The, May, 2004

On April 5th, 2004, China Mobile selected Huawei's advanced GSM soft-switch MSC to build its TMSC plane network, which will cover the network of China Mobile in 31 provinces and branches, and will also deal with all long-distance mobile calls between the two branches, to save long-distance call transmission resources via IP transmission. It will support "17951" VoIP services of China Mobile simultaneously. The contract includes over 30,000 E1 ports.

Huawei's GSM softswitch MSC is based on packet switch technology, and adopts advanced technologies; it can be shared by GSM and WCDMA, and supports smooth evolution from GSM to WCDMA. Huawei's GSM softswitch MSC is the new generation of GSM MSC.

The soft-switch GSM MSC is becoming more and more popular. Compared with the traditional GSM MSC, it has the following advantages:

--It adopts advanced softswitch technology and supports VoIP, and saves transmission resources with IP transmission instead of TDM transmission.

--It supports the R4 distributed networking function. R4 networking reduces CAPEX and OPEX and also improves network quality.

--Complying with international standards and protocols, it supports all services and functions of GSM and, with mere software upgrading, 3G services shall be supported in the future, thus saving existing investment as the network develops.

--It supports CAMEL 3 prepaid services (Voice and Data), VoIP, Ring back-tone services, Hot-billing, AoCC/AoCI, PTT, etc. It is also compatible with CAMEL 2 prepaid service downwards. What is more important is that it also supports smooth evolution to CAMEL 4.

--It has high integration and low power consumption. Huawei's GSM soft-switch MSC is not only highly integrated but also supports a large number of subscribers. It maximally supports 1.8 million subscribers. High integration reduces network complexity, investment in equipment rooms, air conditioning. It also ensures system reliability and provides much easier maintenance. The amount of power consumed is immensely reduced to a mere 22KW, further realizing a reduction in operation costs, thus making it the right choice for today's telecom operators. It adopts a modular design, thus supports on-line capacity expansion and software upgrade.

--It uses middle-ware Technology. Middle-ware technology means that the upper layer software is irrelative to the bottom layer operating system. The technology allows for cross interchange between different platforms, and a little change in the service software enables the manufacturer to rapidly provide stable commercial versions. This technology can help operators increase services and functions with easy software upgrade.