Speech compression over all-IP, introduced with Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch Solution, is the fundamental first step in the migration to an efficient IP network and it greatly reduces transmission requirements.

The first call was made in December 2005 between Yekaterinburg and Nizhniy Tagil in a new VimpelCom coverage area.  This state of the art technology will be launched across the whole of this new region in February 2006.   

Zoran Lukovic, Vice President, Market Unit Eastern Europe and Central Asia, says: "We are proud to be selected by VimpelCom for the deployment of the softswitch solution and to support its evolution to all-IP. We are also grateful for their support to achieve yet another world first, confirming Ericsson's leadership." 

Sergey Avdeev, Executive VP & CTO, VimpelCom, says "Ericsson is a very reliable partner, which guarantees our investments to be future proof."

Ericsson's Mobile Softswitch Solution is the world's most widely deployed softswitch architecture solution. It powers around 50% of the total softswitch architecture mobile networks in full commercial service. Ericsson is also the world leader in developing multi-service IP transport solutions optimized for mobile networks and services and provides fully tested and verified solutions combining both the core network nodes and multi-service IP backbone.