[asterisk-ss7] ss7 newbie

[Matthew Fredrickson]

Sriram wrote:
> Hi Experts
>  
> First of all apologies for my ignorance about ss7 as i am new to it 
> ..I provide some premium voice service to telcos, earlier i used to 
> work with PRIs and dialogic card, asterisk fascinated me when i had a 
> look at it..my provider says he'll provide me a ss7 link now - in 
> dialogic world this means i need a septel card (quite expensive)..
>  
> i bought a TE420P and played with it using PRIs and SIP extensions...i 
> read that this card supports ss7 ...my questions - (please forgive me 
> if they sound silly !)
>  
> 1. Is ss7 just like a PRI cable ? or is it a V.35 like cable that acts 
> as ss7 signalling ? do i need anything in addition to TE420P ?
In most cases it is like a PRI.  In some old US setups though, they 
still use a V.35-ish interface.  Most likely though, you will get your 
signalling channel over a DS0 on one of your E1s (or T1s if you're in 
the US).
> 2. how do i do the actual connectivity ?
See the README file in libss7, or the sample chan_dahdi.conf with 
Asterisk :-)
> 3. i read chan-ss7 and libss7 provide the ss7 support on asterisk 
> ...is libss7 (the open source one) reliable ?
I would say that libss7 has become quite reliable.  Using the current 
version (of libss7 and Asterisk-1.6.0 branch) I have a setup that has 
been running for nearly a month doing over 100,000 calls per day.
> 4. "where do i insert" the ss7 link ? and how do i test it..
Into the E1/T1 port.... :-)

Matthew Fredrickson
Software/Firmware Engineer
Digium, Inc.