Re: Sigtran or MTP interconnect?

Lee,

Lee Dryburgh wrote:                                                                    (Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:51:33)
> An issue has arisen in relation to the emerging communications
> conference (www.eCommMedia.com); the short of it is - are people still
> doing MTP interconnects?

Yes.

> If so why?

Because that is how phone switches tend to talk to each other.

> To be more specific, are people still building boxes then going to
> incumbents around the world, running thru tests (Q.78x) to get them
> certified at high cost etc. in each country?

Many boxes (SS7 stacks) where built many years ago an are already
certified.  Certified SS7 stack software is available to be used
in new designs without the additional costs.

> Or do all incumbents in developed nations now accept Sigtran for signlling
> interconnect?

No.

> Any experiences would be welcome.  I know in the States that
> Verisign has supported Sigtran interconnects for around 5 years, but I
> wonder what the case is, specifically in Belgium?

M3UA has been a GSM standard for over 5 years as well.

> Leaving aside the incumbent issue (i.e. do they accept SigTran
> interconnects on the whole) - does anyone see an advantage of using
> MTP?

Advantage: it works.

SIGTRAN does not avoid the use of SS7 stacks (it is not a complete
signalling protocol stack of its own), it just provides a way to
distribute that stack over mutliple boxes or a way for two SS7 stacks to
communicate over IP instead of TDM links.  If anything it adds more
complexity to an SS7 interconnection rather than removing it.

--brian

-- 
Brian F. G. Bidulock
[email protected]
http://www.openss7.org/