The 5ESS® wireless mobile switching center

The growing market for wireless telecommunications services is resulting in a strong movement toward digitizing these services. Currently, three digital wireless standards are specified. Each includes a mobile switching center (MSC) as the centralized network switching and call control entity. The MSC must be adaptable to a variety of network and service environments, and must support a broad range of sophisticated end-user services. AT&T's 5ESS® Switch supports the MSC function for two of the three digital wireless standards, and is an integral component of the AT&T MSC product for the third standard. Reuse of the existing hardware platform, designing wireless functionality as incremental extensions of the existing software architecture, and support of intelligent network (IN) capabilities on the 5ESS MSC, results in a uniquely matched solution for providing wireless services in a wide variety of network environments and applications.