1 Introduction

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1.1 What is Signaling?.............................................................................................. 3
1.2 Signaling System Requirements (1/2)................................................................. 4
1.2 Signaling System Requirements (2/2)................................................................. 5
1.3 Common ChannelSignaling System No. 7.......................................................... 6
1.4 SS7 Synonyms................................................................................................... 7
1.5 General definitions (1/4) ..................................................................................... 8
1.5 General definitions (2/4) ..................................................................................... 9
1.5 General definitions (3/4) ................................................................................... 10
1.5 General definitions (4/4) ................................................................................... 11
1.6 SS7's most significant advantage ..................................................................... 12

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1.1 What is Signaling?

Generally speaking, signaling provides the information needed to establish, modify

and release a link between two parties in a telecommunications network.
It starts with A-partys request for services, e.g. picking-up the handset. The
operator switchboard asks for the destination address, i.e. the B-partys phone
number and processes this number in order to find the B-party in the network. As
soon as the B-party is found it's alerted to announce the incoming call. After it has
picked-up the phone, billing activities start and both parties can carry on their
conversation. When one party hangs up, the occupied resources are released and
the billing process is stopped.

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1.2 Signaling System Requirements (1/2)

For fixed networks, also called Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN), all
signaling activities are performed automatically. PSTN switches contain high-
capacity and fault-tolerant signaling processors to connect a party from the home
network to any other party in the same network or other PSTNs including
international communications.
The signaling system can also support supplementary services, e.g., calling line
identification.

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1.2 Signaling System Requirements (2/2)

For mobile networks, also called Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN), the
subscribers mobility has to be managed, especially when they roam abroad.
And with the advent in todays mobile networks based on GPRS or UMTS of high
performance data capabilities seamless data availability must be supported by the
signaling system.

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1.3 Common ChannelSignaling System No. 7

The first planning steps for a "Common Channel Signaling System" able to meet all
the evolving requirements for modern fixed and mobile telecommunications began in
1975. In 1980, the CCITT that's known today as the "International
Telecommunication Union - Telecommunications" (ITU-T) provided the first set of
specifications to implement the "Common Channel Signaling System No. 7"; or for
short "CCS7" within standard PSTN switchboards.
Since then, a large variety of evolved recommendations and specifications has been
worked out by various standard bodies, e.g. the ITU-T Q-series for fixed network
signaling and the "3. Generation Partnership Project" (3GPP) for GSM or UMTS for
mobile networks.

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1.4 SS7 Synonyms

There are many names and abbreviations for this signaling system, such as
Common Channel Signaling #7, Common Channel Signaling 7, Signaling System 7,
System 7, CCS 7, SS7, C7 and perhaps even more. To limit the confusion in this
course the expression SS7 is used.

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1.5 General definitions (1/4)

Let's now look at some general SS7 definitions.

SS7 is only used between network elements like switching exchanges, never
towards the user terminal in the sense of an access network signaling system.

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1.5 General definitions (2/4)

Of course, signaling messages are also exchanged between terminals and network
elements. SS7 messages are optimized for inter-network-element signaling thus
other signaling message formats are used on the access link between end-user
terminals and switches. This requires message translation for the different sections
of the transmission path, e.g. from SS7 into the DSS1 protocol for ISDN access.

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1.5 General definitions (3/4)

Looking at it in a more abstract way, SS7 messages are exchanged between

Signaling Points of a Telecommunication Network. Signaling Points represent all
hardware and software components in a switch responsible for handling signaling
messages.

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1.5 General definitions (4/4)

Terminal equipment is linked by trunks and switching exchanges, user data like
speech, data, fax, images, etc. is transmitted via traffic channels that might take
different physical routes within the network to those taken by SS7 signaling
messages.
As user info and signaling messages do not have to take the same physical routes,
great routing flexibility is offered for signaling information according to the available
link capacity and a given load situation.
Automatic load sharing provides an optimal signaling message throughput even if
some signaling points are currently not available.

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1.6 SS7's most significant advantage

At the end of this module we'll talk about SS7's most significant advantage, its huge
capacity.
This becomes obvious if we consider the link capacity each call needs per unit a
communication time: Normally, singling takes place during the call setup phase and
when the call is released, and perhaps when a third party has to be integrated or
released. During the great majority of the time where speech information is being
exchanged this particular signaling link that physically is a 64 KBit/s timeslot in a 2
MBit/s transmission trunk can be used to support other calls in the same way.
Thus, thousands of speech calls can be managed by only one signaling link. This
proves the high efficiency of this kind of outband signaling system.

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