Softswitch

Article summary

A softswitch (software switch) is a call-switching node in a telecommunications network, based not on the specialized switching hardware of the traditional telephone exchange, but implemented in software running on a general-purpose computing platform. Like its traditional counterparts it connects telephone calls between subscribers or other switching systems across a telecommunication network. Often a softswitch is implemented to switch calls using voice over IP (VoIP) technologies, but hybrid systems exist. Although the term softswitch technically refers to any such device, it is conventionally applied to a device that handles IP-to-IP phone calls, while the phrase access server or "media gateway" is used to refer to devices that either originate or terminate traditional land line phone calls. In practice, such devices can often do both. An access server might take a mobile call or a call originating from a traditional telephone line, convert it to IP traffic, then send it over an IP network to another such device, which terminates the call by reversing the process and converting the voice over IP call to circuit-switched digital systems using traditional digital time-division multiplexing (TDM) or analog POTS protocols. The call agents are the software switching elements of the softswitch. Other components handle functions for billing, directory services, network signaling.…

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