Comparitive Study on Soft Switch and Monolithic MSCs (Mobile Switching Centres)

Core Telecom People usually hear a lot about the Monlithic Nodes and the Soft Switch. We are going to talk about them in this brief note:-
What are Monolithic MSCs?
Monolithic Means MSCs which were Traditional Switches or MSCs (Mobile Switching Centres) which are designed to perform at 1.8 BHCA Capacity and merely few touching 3 BHCA(Busy Hour Call Attempts). These Old Designed MSCs were usually had connectivity with BSC and the BSC(Base Switching Centres) which are connected to BTSs.The End to End Connectivity usually is on TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) Technology and hence the limitation of keep enhancing the capacity to ensure the trunk group (Connectivity) Traffic utilization under control.
New Enhancement in the Technology brought in the Soft Switch Technology which has MGW(Media Gateway) and MSC as Servers called as MSC-S. MSC are now called as MSC Servers the Reason is the single MSC can connect to Multiple MGWs. Hence it is called MSC Server due to its ablility to control multiple MGWs at a Time. In the soft switch technology the MSC Server Part is the Resource Control Part and the MGW are the Resources (Means E1 Connectivity is through MGW Only).
The benefit of this technology are:-
1. The Chances of Complete Outage is far Off as the MSC servers are able to control multiple MGWs.
2. Dependency on E1 is reduced and the connectivity is now on IP(Internet Protocol) Routers. Means least chances of Outage due to fibre cut as 6 redundant paths are present for the Packets to flow.

Monolithic MSC’s have there advantage as :-
1. Less depedency on Software hence more Stable and require very frequency of updates.
2. Usually it is seen that Voice quality on the Monolithic network and Complexity in Operations and Maintenance is less.

Hence the Monolithic and Soft Switches have there own advantages and disadvantages but to accomodate the latest technology Soft Switches are preferred choices as they are cost effective.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top