Patent ID: 6920144

Claim:
A method of routing Signaling System 7 (SS7) signaling traffic over an Internet Protocol (IP) network comprising the steps of: a first signaling gateway (SG) receiving SS7 signaling traffic from a first signaling point; converting said SS7 signaling traffic to an IP message stream utilizing protocol conversion layers, wherein said conversion layers include transaction capabilities application part (TCAP), message transfer part 1 (MTP1), MTP2, and MTP3 Message Transfer Part 3-User Adaptation Layer (M3UA) to a second signaling gateway, wherein the second SG receiving the IP message stream and recovering the SS7 signaling traffic from the IP message stream and sending the recovered SS7 signaling traffic to a second SS7 signaling link; transferring the signaling traffic over the IP network by routing the signaling traffic in said IP message stream to a second SG capable of supporting Peer-to-peer communications with the first SG; and the second SG receiving the IP message stream, recovering the SS7 signaling traffic from the IP message stream and sending the recovered SS7 signaling traffic to a second signaling point.