Patent ID: 7035218

Claim:
A method of processing congestion conditions of a MTP user part in a SS7 network, comprising: (a) defining a user part congested (UPC) message that indicates when congestion has occurred in a MTP user part of a destination signaling point, and a MTP_STATUS primitive to reduce a number of the signaling messages to be transmitted to the congested MTP user part; (b) generating the UPC message in the destination signaling point, and transmitting the generated UPC message to an originating signaling point of the signaling message when a MTP of the destination signaling point recognizes congestion conditions of the MTP user part of the destination signaling point; and (c) generating the MTP_STATUS primitive, and transmitting the generated MTP_STATUS primitive to a MTP user part of the originating signaling point to request the MTP user part of the originating signaling point to reduce the number of the signaling messages to be transmitted to the congested MTP user part of the destination signaling point; and wherein (b) comprises: (d) determining whether or not a destination signaling point of a signaling message transmitted from an adjacent signaling point is the signaling point to which the MTP belongs when the corresponding MTP receives the signaling message from the adjacent signaling point; (e) determining whether or not a MTP user part exists for the received signaling message to be transferred if the destination signaling point of the received signaling message is the signaling point to which the MTP belongs; (f) determining whether or not the MTP user part of the destination signaling point is congested, if the MTP user part for the received signaling message to be transferred exists and the MTP user part is available; (g) determining whether or not it is necessary for the MTP of the destination signaling point transmit the UPC message to the originating signaling point of the received signaling message, if the MTP user part of the destination signaling point is congested; and (h) transmitting the UPC message to the originating signaling point if it is determined that it is necessary that the MTP of the destination signaling point transmit the UPC message to the originating signaling point.