SS7: The enabler

摘要

SS& is a pure out-of-band, or common channel protocol, with signaling occurring only on the dedicated channel. It has several characteristics that are desirable in a modern telecommunications network: 1. speed, 2. reliability, 3. flexibility, and 4. efficiency. SS7 signaling links run at 64kb/s, a raw speed at least 1,000 times faster than multi-frequency tone-based signaling systems. SS7 is flexible because it is based on a layered protocol architecture. It allows greater efficiency in call processing because the signaling and trunk setup can be performed in 2 separate phases.