Siemens Communications and Proximus (Belgacom Mobile), Belgium’s largest mobile operator, have just extended their cooperation for the development of Proximus’ network in the long term: Siemens will handle the modernisation and evolution of the operator’s core network towards a release 4 systems architecture, allowing optimal organization of network traffic. In a first step, Proximus will introduce the Siemens PowerMSC (Mobile Switching Center) which will enable Proximus to reduce the current number of network elements. This consolidation will result in substantial operational cost savings for Proximus. In a next step, Proximus will migrate its existing Home Location Register (HLR) base towards Siemens’ next generation HLR innovation platform. Currently, this base is switch-based. The new platform is server-based: updates or product innovations can be carried out in as short a period as one night. Similarly, queries such as the usage of foreign mobile networks, will only take a few seconds to be answered. The new system will provide Proximus with superior capabilities for service provisioning and improved customer care support. In the final implementation phase, Proximus will introduce Siemens’ next generation, ATCA-based media gateway to complete the step-change to a full release 4 architecture. In this architecture, the existing PowerMSC will evolve to fully fledged MSC Servers, centrally handling all call control, whereas the actual traffic is handled decentralized by the state-of-the-art ATCA mobile media gateways.
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