Abbreviation for Mobile services Switching Center. The
MSC is part of the GSM Network Switching Subsystem (NSS)
- The MSC is actually a digital switch that
has been upgraded to suit the requirements of a mobile network environment. In other
words: The digital exchanges within the PSTN can also be used as MSC.
- Accordingly, companies like ALCATEL or
SIEMENS could use their already existing hardware (S12, E10, EWSD) as MSC.
- In GSM, the MSC takes care of the resource
management on the A-interface towards the BSC and it is responsible for call processing.
- Also, the MSC is suited to process a
handover procedure between two and even three MSCs.
- A special function is given to the
Gateway-MSC (G-MSC) which is an MSC that provides access to external networks. Note that
in a PLMN not every MSC needs to be a G-MSC.
- Other MSC's might incorporate more
specialized functions for the processing of short messages (SMS-IW-MSC / SMS-G-MSC). See
in the figure below.

Figure 1: The Difference between SMS-IW-MSC
and SMS-G-MSC
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