Telica takes wireless path

Telica has become the latest softswitch vendor to put forward a high-profile wireless strategy, launching a suite of wireless applications this week to fit wireless network needs.

The company’s Plexus 9000 switching architecture is being targeted at gateway mobile switching center (GMSC) applications, soft MSC and all-IP wireless applications, which satisfy a growing need for inter-MSC trunks on the otherwise traditional flat wireless network topology. The Plexus 9000 will now work in GSM,GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, TDMA, CDMA2000 and UMTS networks.

The announcement bears extreme similarity to a move made by fellow softswitch vendor Sonus Networks just weeks ago, but Rob Holt, media gateway product line manager at Telica said the company has been working on a wireless solution since the fourth quarter of 2001.

“A couple of big carriers were looking at our products and asked us if we ever thought about doing solutions for wireless networks,” Holt said. “There’s no change in our architecture that is required to support the GMSC application. This application is defined as part of the GSM standard, so it’s really not a new thing.”

Holt added that Telica, which primarily targets large telcos and has won business in the wireline industry with incumbent operators, hopes to translate that success to the wireless subsidiaries and affiliates of those companies.