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Zain Group has selected Tekelec to enable Zain (News - Alert) Nigeria to gain the benefits associated with migrating to an all-Internet Protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) network.

Zain Group provides mobile services in 23 countries and Zain Nigeria is Zain’s largest network operator. Company said that it selected Tekelec (News - Alert) due to its technology’s market-proven reliability and ability to scale to the growing demands of global service providers.

Also, Tekelec’s EAGLE 5 platform was selected due to Tekelec’s support of SIGTRAN (SS7 signaling over IP), which is a “stepping stone for cost-effectively migrating to an all-IP network,” said Zain officials.

With SIGTRAN, service providers on the public-switched telephone networks (PSTNs) are capable of using an underlying IP transport vehicle. This allows service providers to offer their subscribers multimedia services through their existing network, according to Tekelec.

“The project has been managed by Tekelec in an exceptionally professional and consistent manner even when faced with integration into a challenging environment such as Nigeria,” said John Earley, technical director at Zain Nigeria.

Tekelec is a provider of core multimedia session control and network intelligence. In 2007 and 2008, 37 of Tekelec’s 40 new customers purchased the EAGLE 5 platform across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe, and the Middle East. Company said that its solutions are now deployed in 103 countries.

“On a global basis, Tekelec is experiencing strong success with our EAGLE 5 platform,” said Wolrad Claudy, senior vice president of global sales at Tekelec.

He said that in the majority of cases—including Zain Nigeria—the EAGLE 5 platform displaced another that could not support the service provider's migration plans in a flexible and scalable manner.

Zain Nigeria completed the EAGLE 5 deployment in Q4 2008.

Last month, Tekelec said that it had published The SIP Pocket Guide, an exclusive reference guide for Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) professionals.