Patent ID: 7006433

Claim:
A link changeover method in an IP-based telecommunications network for transporting SS7 signaling information, said network including a local node and a remote node, wherein each of said nodes includes an MTP3 (Level-3 Message Transfer Part) structure, an M2PA (Level-2 Message Transfer Part—user peer-to-peer adaptation) structure, and an SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) structure comprising the steps of: establishing a link between said local and remote nodes by creating an association therebetween; detecting, by at least one of said local and remote nodes, that a select condition related to said association has occurred; receiving, by an M2PA structure in one of said nodes, a message from the MTP3 structure in said one node, requesting a selected sequence number; determining said selected sequence number, by said M2PA structure in said one node, by locating the first gap in selected messages; responsive to said detection step and said determining step, exchanging message sequence number information between said local and remote nodes on an alternative link established therebetween; and based on said message sequence number information, retransmitting messages over said alternative link, said messages starting at a predetermined sequence number.