signalling transport (IP/IETF) (SIGTRAN)

Signaling Transport (SIGTRAN) is the structure for the transport of signaling messages.

The Sigtran structure is described by a functional model with hierarchical structure and includes all components involved in the signaling between circuit-switched telephone networks and packet-switched IP networks, such as the Signalling Gateways( SGW), the Softswitches, respectively the MediaGatewayControllers( MGC), and the Media Gateways( MGW).

In Sigtran, a development of signaling from thePSTN, the adapters and transport capabilities are defined with which SS7 signaling is mixed with packet protocols to provide the user with the best of both technologies. The Sigtran functional model is an IETF specification and described in RFC 2719.