Patent ID: 8903074
Filing Date: 2014-12-02
Classification: H04M,H04Q

Abstract:
1. A method for congestion-based routing of telecommunications signaling messages, the method comprising: at a first Signaling System 7 (SS7) network routing node: determining whether congestion exists on a primary SS7 signaling route to a destination SS7 network node; receiving SS7 telecommunications signaling messages directed towards the destination SS7 network node to be sent over the primary SS7 signaling route; and in response to determining that congestion exists on the primary SS7 signaling route, redirecting, from within the first SS7 network routing node, at least one of the SS7 telecommunications signaling messages to be sent over the primary SS7 signaling route to instead be sent to the destination SS7 network node via an alternate SS7 signaling route, wherein redirecting the at least one SS7 telecommunications signaling message includes providing congestion based routing data within the first SS7 network routing node for a congested linkset configured as the primary SS7 route, comparing a message priority level contained in each of the received SS7 telecommunications signaling messages to a congestion level indicated by the congestion based routing data, and redirecting each of the received SS7 telecommunications signaling messages with the message priority level that is lower than the congestion level to the destination SS7 network node over the alternate SS7 signaling route, wherein the congestion based routing data is configured to redirect a portion of the traffic received for the primary route over a linkset corresponding to an alternate route while the primary route is operational.