During last several years the Softswitch technology has been actively discussed. New and traditional operators, including the operators of the IP telephony, test Softswitch systems, considering them from the point of view of wide use in communication networks and at the same time improving the technical background for the implementation of such systems.
IDC projected over 9 billion minutes of voice traffic to travel over worldwide packet networks in 2000, exceeding 135 billion minutes in 2004. Service revenue is projected at 1.6 billion in 2000 and 18.7 billion in 2004.