Mumbai, May 22 (UNI) Global mobile communications major Nokia has received an interface approval certification for its next generation 3GPP Release 4-based mobile softswitch from the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.

With this approval, Nokia becomes the first equipment vendor in India to have a fully approved Mobile Switching Center (MSC) server system based on the latest Release 4 architecture for deployment among local operators, stated a press release issued here today.

The MSC server system allows operators to meet the challenging needs of today by providing numerous benefits including lower overall cost of production for each voice minute as well as lower total cost of ownership besides providing a clear migration path to 3G. It will also enable Voice over IP and, more generally, all IP services for fixed and mobile operators.

Commenting on the certification, Nokia Networks India country manager Ashish Chowdhary said, ''Nokia has been pioneering telecom solutions and the Release 4 architecture-based MSC server system is a great example. The TEC certification is the first of its kind in India and marks an important milestone for Nokia as it allows us to offer the commercial benefits of this solution to our local operator customers.'' Nokia is the largest supplier of Release 4 architecture-based MSC server system with 85 signed contracts today for GSM, WCDMA and Voice over IP, the release said.

Nokia MSC server system is a major development in the implementation of the core network for voice, SMS and 3G video call services and along with today's TDM and ATM backbone solutions, it fully supports IP for both traffic and signaling, thus, making it ideal for integrating existing voice services to growing IP based multiservice networks, the release said.

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