Thomson announces that more than 6 million VoIP telephony lines deployed by operators around the world are managed by Cirpack Class-5 voice switches from Thomson. This represents a 50% growth of users in just six months. Class 5 voice switches allow operators to provide primary line telephony with emergency numbers and legal intercept with advanced voice features such as call forwarding and call conferencing to their customers.

With the launch of its solutions for fixed mobile convergence in 2006, clients for the Cirpack switch now include large mobile operators such as SFR, as well as cable operators, ISPs and telcos. The Thomson's Cirpack voice switching platform is being used by over 85 operators and ISPs in over 35 countries.

"Voice over IP is now a wide phenomenon. In France, for instance, about 25% of all voice traffic use VoIP technologies, according to French regulator ARCEP", commented Jacques Dunogué, SEVP of Thomson's Systems Division. "Initiated to reduce telephony costs, it is now entering a second phase with services such as Fixed-Mobile Convergence. Thomson is proud to continue to be a technical leader in this area."

"Thomson's Cirpack softswitch and gateways have been on the market for almost 10 years, helping operators to expand their legacy PSTN infrastructure. The same Cirpack platform can also be used to deploy broadband telephony services with the features and regulatory requirements required for a primary-line voice service." said Steve Byars of Current Analysis. "This not only allows operators to reduce OpEx and network complexity, it also lets them quickly launch VoIP services that can replace the PSTN. Today, the Cirpack softswitch is powering some of the largest European VoIP deployments and has demonstrated it represents an ideal solution for carriers' multiple service-delivery needs while they migrate to next-generation networks and IMS." said Byars.