Patent ID: 7853784

Claim:
A method for filtering signaling messages and selecting application triggers, the method comprising: (a) receiving a telecommunications signaling message at a communications module in a telecommunications signaling message routing node; (b) decoding a portion of the received telecommunications signaling message at the communications module and building a decode key based on the decoded portion of the telecommunications signaling message, the decode key including at least one telecommunications signaling parameter from the received telecommunication signaling message, wherein the decode key has a fixed format for different types of messages to facilitate message parameter insertion by other modules of the signaling message routing node and to facilitate message parameter extraction by downstream applications, wherein the decode key includes plural parameter values extracted from different levels of the signaling message; (c) selecting an application engine for processing the telecommunications signaling message based on the at least one parameter in the decode key, the application engine implementing a telecommunications signaling application; and (d) forwarding the telecommunications signaling message and the decode key to the selected application engine for further processing, wherein the application engine receives the telecommunications signaling message and the decode key and uses information in the decode key to make a determination regarding treatment of the telecommunications signaling message.