SIGTRAN

Revision as of 11:59, 14 November 2011

SIGTRAN refers to the ability to provide SS7 and ISDN signaling over an IP network.

SIGTRAN is the name given to an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group that produced specifications for a family of protocols that provide reliable datagram service and user layer adaptations for SS7 and ISDN communications protocols. SIGTRAN is logically an extension of the SS7 protocol family. It supports the same application and call management paradigms as SS7 but uses an IP transport called Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) as its underlying transport vehicle. Indeed, the most significant protocol defined by the SIGTRAN group was SCTP, which is used to carry PSTN signaling over IP.

TelcoBridges and SIGTRAN

TelcoBridges provides support for SIGTRAN starting in Toolpack v2.4. This initial release supports SS7 SIGTRAN; ISDN SIGTRAN is not currently supported. TelcoBridges' SIGTRAN implementation provides support for SCTP, M2UA, M2PA, M3UA and IUA. (SUA support is not currently planned as part of the initial SIGTRAN release.)

Among the features of TelcoBridges' SIGTRAN implementation are the following:

• M2PA with 64 links
• M2UA in SG and ASP mode
• M3UA in SG, ASP and IPSP mode
• M3UA with load distribution features similar to the MTP3 stack
  • Note: there will probably be a number of peer server limitations for M3UA

Related actions

Refer to the appropriate release of Toolpack:

• Toolpack v2.4: SIGTRAN Application Scenarios
• Toolpack v2.5: SIGTRAN Application Scenarios

References

• Wikipedia article
• Introduction to SIGTRAN, by Jim Darroch
• SIGTRAN white paper, from the International Engineering Consortium
• Pricing model (TelcoBridges)