PARIS -- Thomson's (Euronext 18453; NYSE; TMS) VoIP softswitches have been selected by the telecommunications group artelis for deployment of IP telephony by its subsidiaries in Luxembourg and Germany with more than 250,000 subscribers.

The owner of two telecommunication companies - Cegecom in Luxembourg and VSE NET in Germany, artelis also provides wholesale communications services to other operators. artelis has chosen Thomson's Cirpack VoIP platform in order to launch a double play offer packaged with primary line telephony to its residential customers as well as "IP centrex" services with advanced business features to enterprise customers.

"We were especially interested in Thomson's interoperability with multiple networks, including traditional telephony[1] and cable infrastructures, which made the Cirpack softswitch suitable for our deployments in both countries as well as for our wholesale clients some of whom are cable operators" said Mr Leidinger, General Manager of artelis. "In addition, we were attracted by the fact that Thomson provides end to end solutions for triple play, something that we are examining for the future."

"Our deployment with artelis further demonstrates Thomson's success in providing multiple play service platforms to telecom operators," said Bruno Fabre, Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing of the Systems Division at Thomson. "Our Cirpack VoIP softswitches are uniquely positioned to help operators with hybrid networks and multi countries operations to launch rich broadband services"

Thomson S.A. (NYSE: TMS; Euronext Paris: 18453)