Sunday, March 28, 2004

MetaSwitch Expands VoIP Capabilities with SIP and IP Centrex

MetaSwitch announced a series of enhancements for its VP3500 Next Generation Class 5 Switch, including support for IP Centrex and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) v2.0. Support for SIP extends the MetaSwitch VP3500's interoperability to a wider range of devices including SIP phones and SIP-based feature servers.



MetaSwitch's SIP softswitch implementation provides back-to-back user agent (B2BUA) and registrar functionality integrated with an SS7 signaling gateway and media (trunk) gateway with ATM, IP and TDM interfaces. The MetaSwitch VP3500 already supports a full range of IP Centrex and VoIP subscriber services over MGCP and NCS gateway control protocols. The addition of a SIP feature server interface allows these to be augmented by custom-developed features or off-switch services. MetaSwitch is working on pre-integrating solutions with a range of such feature servers, including Data Connection's MailNGen unified messaging and MeetingServer conferencing applications, and IP-based platforms for traditional services such as pre-paid calling.



The MetaSwitch VP3500 SIP-enabled software release is available now. The company said many of MetaSwitch's 40+ deployed switches have already been seamlessly upgraded. http://www.metaswitch.com