CHICAGO--Tekelec is turning its expertise in core signaling toward IP multimedia subsystem, unveiling at Globalcomm its version of the technology’s central control element, the call session control function (CSCF). The next-generation vendor also announced its intention to move beyond signaling software into the application world, revealing a SIP-based SMS platform.

Along with the home subscriber server (HSS), the CSCF makes up the core control plane of an IMS architecture, directing all the SIP traffic across the network. Several other vendors have already rolled out their CSCF products, including them in initial IMS rollouts in the U.S. and Europe and Asia. However, Tekelec said it has built its platform to fit seamlessly with its currently deployed Eagle 5 signaling server. The CSCF, called TekCore, is built into an Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) “server-on-a-card”, allowing it to be slipped into a chassis of its existing Eagle 5 ATCA chassis. Tekelec already has Eagle 5 deployed with 200 customers globally, so with the new TekCore product carriers can simply plug IMS control plane capabilities into their current signaling systems, Tekelec officials said.

Tekelec also announced its first end-to-end application, an SMS solution designed not as an SMSC but rather as modular messaging platform that will support simple text messaging as well as mobile-to-application, application-to-mobile and application-to-application scenarios such as those used by SMS voting and telemetry. Built on SIP rather than proprietary protocols, the platform also supports the addition of multimedia and other content rather than requiring a separate MMSC.