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New Generation converged services core network goes live

Telkom has announced that its all new Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) core has now been switched on. The Company is again in a position to report on the progress of its Network Transformation programme through this strategic milestone as it continues the journey to transform to an all IP network that’s geared for the future.

This move towards an all IP Converged Core Network is consistent with Telkom's NGN Transformation Themes

• Revamping the access (build of MSAN's)
• Enhancing aggregation (fiber closer to key businesses and office parks)
• Evolving the core and migrating voice (IMS Converged Core)

The deployment of the latter is one of the major milestones in our journey to complete the NGN transformation

At the launch of the Company’s first MSAN unit in March 2012 Mr Bashier Sallie, Telkom's Managing Director of Wholesale and Networks explained that an access network is only as good as the underlying transmission and core network. He also said at the time that Telkom had gone a long way in revamping its transmission and aggregation network.

The IMS core is Telkom's choice of technology to deliver competitive voice and converged offerings in its future mode of operation. It satisfies the operators need for an overlay network that supports both emulated¹ and simulated² voice services whilst enabling efficiency and delivering fixed and mobile converged voice products.

Speaking to the significance of this unveiling, Mr Bashier Sallie, says, "For Telkom, this is the most significant network intervention in 3 decades. Our current Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) voice switching equipment has reliably provided the voice platform over the past three decades but has reached end-of-life and will reach end-of-support in 2015/16. The IMS core will replace this seamlessly. In terms of voice applications, we are now ready for the future with the latest, best in breed technology."

The timeous build and launch of this new voice platform further indicates Telkom's focused execution of its network strategy. The IMS core team comprised of Telkom's own technical and engineering personnel and members of staff from equipment supplier Huawei who took only six months to complete the build project.

The standards based IMS core that allows for the deployment of fixed and mobile services is fully redundant and caters for a larger number of customers than legacy voice systems while affording Telkom significant savings in terms of space, power, cooling and maintenance and support. The technology will replace core network switching equipment that is currently based in more than 100 of Telkom's buildings nationally. The voice aspect for all future MSAN's that are deployed by Telkom will work off the IMS core.

"The migration of voice is an integral part of our Network Transformation Programme that seeks to evolve our core network resulting in one network - for fixed and mobile - all IP enabled. I am especially proud that we can innovate in a manner that indicates that the Telkom today is working hard to be the network that our customers and the greater South African public can be proud of," concluded Sallie.

Additional Information:

1 - Emulated voice services are the legacy voice services already provided today, but migrated to a more efficient NGN core technology, where media gateways are deployed to translate between legacy TDM voice and IP. Most of the fixed voice traffic will be on the emulated platform.

2 - Simulated voice services are the NGN equivalent voice services with new IP enabled features. These services are provided from a SIP enabled Application Server and the service is end-to-end IP enabled.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Telkom Park, The Apex 92 Oak Avenue Technopark Highveld Centurion

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

• fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
• fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
• interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
• fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
• Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
• W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
• mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
•  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
• other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.