[Asterisk-ss7] Let us design an open source SS7 interface for Asterisk

[Andrew Edem]

The problem is that SS7 is extremely complicated. So the question is:

1) Do you want to write your own SS7 stack in software?
2) Do you want to integrate asterisk with a proprietary SS7 stack
which is incompatable with GPL?
3) Do you want to integrate asterisk with a proprietary piece of SS7
hardware (such as an SS7 PCI card or an SS7 signalling gateway)?

So, 2 is unacceptable, 1 is a massive ammount of work, and 3 isn't that
interesting to people who can't afford expensive hardware and probably
won't be supported by Digium (unless its their own hardware).

And, furthermore, if you're going to write your own stack, you need to
get it certified before anyone will let you interconnect to their
network. You would also need an SS7 simulator for testing your
implementation, which is also very expensive.


My idea is to create a generic interface for asterisk to
access ISUP applications via sockets. The idea would be to
create an ISUP library similar to libPRI, but, instead of talking
directly over a zap device, communicate via RPC. That way it would be
very easy to build a middleware solution to have asterisk use Aculab
cards, openSS7, or something like that. And, since fundamentally,
asterisk is never going to use anything except ISUP, it doesn't need to
know about MTP2/MTP3/SCCP/etc.


-Andrew


On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 03:48:36PM +1200, Matt Riddell wrote:
> I thought the problem was with the fact that it uses patented technology 
> therefore making an opensource implementation impossible.
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> 
> Matt Riddell
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