RE: The requiremnts and proposals forM2PA/M3UA/SCTPExtension from China Mobile

Brian,

>Is the same true for Vodafone worldwide?  
For the opcos I know their international signalling providers, yes (some of the biggest ones in terms of subscribers in Europe).

>That is, do all Vodafone SS7 interconnects on all points of the globe use 
>the same vendor for TDM?
No, even after the big mergers (Nokia+Siemens, Alcatel+Lucent+Nortel, Ericsson+Marconi). 

>For SIGTRAN too?  Or, just the one location?
Same as previous answer.


Best regards,
Rui Gomes
Vodafone Portugal

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian F. G. Bidulock [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: quinta-feira, 26 de Julho de 2007 13:30
To: Gomes, Rui Filipe Efigénio, VF-PT
Cc: chenxu; zhaoyuyi; zhanghao; sigtran
Subject: Re: [Sigtran] The requiremnts and proposals forM2PA/M3UA/SCTPExtension from China Mobile

Rui,

Is the same true for Vodafone worldwide?  That is, do all Vodafone SS7
interconnects on all points of the globe use the same vendor for TDM?
For SIGTRAN too?  Or, just the one location?

--brian

Gomes, Rui Filipe Efigénio, VF-PT wrote:        (Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:38:00)
> Brian,
> 
> Just to give some insight on today's international signalling carriers picture.
> 
> >All of the telcommunications carriers that I used to work for required STPs
> >from multiple vendors.  In fact, after the 9-hour AT&T SS7 network outage, >it
> >was required that STPs in an STP pair be from different vendors.  I doubt >that
> >STPs from one vendor (IP or not) is the norm today.  So you are not alone
> >here.
> 
> As an example, Vodafone Portugal is connected to several _major_
> international signalling carriers (Belgium, Canada, England, Hong Kong,
> Netherlands, and Portugal) and all use only one vendor facing Vodafone (for
> TDM and one for SIGTRAN, being the same or not). Other major international
> signalling carriers that I came to know, use the same principle (not
> American ones). The same for mobile operators (I know): when more than one
> vendor are in place, only one is used for the same function (e.g. vendor X
> for IPSTP, vendor Y for SGW, vendor Z for Signalling based billing, etc).
> 
> The reason seems to be that you want to configure your IPSTP/SGW nodes the
> same way using the same (optional) features (and same team, and same
> training and same support, etc). 
> 
> I understand the AT&T 9 hour outage (or the Swisscom's 11 hour total outage,
> or other examples that I know and impacted me). But to manage it, carriers
> (I know) keep only one vendor but use different software versions on
> different boxes (hoping that new version's bugs only affect half of the
> network).
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> Rui Gomes
> Vodafone Portugal
> 
> 
-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock
[email protected]
http://www.openss7.org/


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