White Paper

An Overview of Circuit, Packet

and SS7/C7 Networks

Abstract IP telephony is a new technology based upon

diverse (PSTN, SS7, IP, etc.) networks,
This white paper provides an overview of the computer telephony integration (CTI), and new
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), developments in call control. In order to fully
packet-based networks, and the less-known, but appreciate the value of IP telephony, this white
critical, SS7/C7 network. And it explains why IP paper discusses the fundamentals of basic IP
telephony switches must be able to interface telephony which should provide a solid
seamlessly with all three networks. understanding of the principles behind the Nuvo
IP telephony solution.

PSTN Infrastructure
The architecture of today's PSTN is a direct
descendant of the original manned switchboards
of Alexander Graham Bell's day. Voice is
transmitted in one way: sampled in 8-bit bytes,
8000 times a second, for an aggregate rate of 64
Kbps. The entire telephone network is designed
around this rate and for this one type of traffic
(voice).

IXC IXC
This document is the property of Mockingbird Networks.
Its purpose is to provide educational materials on matters
relating to IP telephony and the burgeoning market for Telephone Telephone
LEC LEC
Voice-over-IP services. Given the complexity of the
market, and the constant innovation occurring in it,
Mockingbird Networks makes no claims of completeness. IXC IXC
For permission to reprint any portion of this document,
please contact Mockingbird Networks.

Copyright 1998-1999 by Mockingbird Networks.

All rights reserved. 3.1 Example of Long Distance PSTN Circuit
 modems, fax machines, and a surprising number
The PSTN uses a circuit-switched architecture in
which a direct connection, or circuit, is made of strange devices with proprietary analog
between two users. The circuit provides a full- protocols. After about two years of intense effort,
duplex, or bi-directional, connection with
extremely low latency, or delay, between the two we made a noticeable difference."
end points. This connection was once a physical
connection, but is now a logical connection The PSTN has slowly evolved over the last 100
through many switches and across a variety of years from a mechanical switching fabric with
wiring types (twisted-pair, fiber-optic cable, analog circuits to a complex mixture of analog
etc.). The users have exclusive and full use of the and digital circuits with a variety of signaling
circuit until the connection is released. techniques. In the age of Moore's Law, which
states that the power of microprocessors is
The fact that the PSTN was designed for circuit doubling approximately every 18 months, it took
switching of voice calls has made it very difficult AT&T 24 months to boost just one part of the
to add new services to the network, or to increase signal in the circuit-switched PSTN.
the efficiency of traffic handling. For example, in
a paper titled, "The Rise of the Stupid Network," IP Gateways with the PTSN: The typical IP
David Isenberg, formerly with AT&T Labs, telephony gateway is designed to sneak their way
describes an attempt to improve circuit-switched into the PSTN by emulating a subscriber who
voice quality as much as possible in the context happens to make a cheap long distance phone
of the PSTN’s current network architecture: call for you. The connection is essentially free if
it is a local call. They also only take into
"If we had not been constrained by network consideration subscriber type circuits such as
architecture, the easiest way would have been to FX, T1/E1, and ISDN which offers no SS7
signaling. This approach won’t last as the
increase the sampling rate or change the coding RBOCs will force IP telephony service providers
to behave as IXCs (long distance companies) and
algorithm. But to actually do this, we would
will move them to trunk-side circuits. The
have had to change every piece of the telephone benefits of free local access will disappear and
the need of true PSTN signaling will cause a
network except the wires. So we had to work shake out in the IP gateway industry.
within the designed 64 Kbps data rate. We
discovered that voice quality could be Packet Networks
Packet switching is a data transmission
substantially improved by boosting the bass part technology in which data is assembled into
of the signal, that part of the audio spectrum distinct digital "packets" with addresses that are
read by switches or routers as the packets are
between 100 and 300 cycles per second. But as received. The switches/routers forward the
packets on to the appropriate destination, but
we set out to implement this conceptually simple
there is not a dedicated circuit connection
improvement, we kept running into the problem between the two.
that there were too many places in the network In fact, packets from a particular source may take
that had built in "intelligent" assumptions about different routes to the same destination,
depending on varying network traffic conditions
the voice signal; echo cancellers, conference and other factors. This type of transmission is
bridges, voice messaging systems, etc. — and too only half-duplex, or unidirectional, which can
easily lead to high delays between sending and
many devices that depended on these acoustic receiving. This type of network is highly
efficient for data, which can be read into memory
assumptions for their correct operation —
and reassembled at the destination.

Copyright 1998-1999 Mockingbird Networks. All rights reserved. 2

 IP's ability to run over any network medium
Concentrator Wide Area Net
(Ethernet, FDDI, SONET, ATM, Frame Relay,
etc.) has led to its widespread adoption around
the world, and it's one of the technologies that
Router Router has enabled the growth of the public Internet. Its
popularity, though, goes far beyond the Internet,
Server
Router Router
Mainframe to encompass the majority of data networks
worldwide.
Router Router

SS7/C7 Network
FDDI LAN
The SS7/C7 network is a special, private
network used for basic call setup, management,
Typical Packet Network Configuration and tear down of most of the wireline networks
in the PSTN. There are some (third-world)
The non-deterministic nature of packet countries which don’t use SS7/C7 yet or use only
switching, however, means that some subsets of the protocol.
packets will arrive out of sequence and that there
must be a mechanism to notify the sending Most people rely heavily on the SS7/C7 network
device when a packet is “lost” so that it can be without being aware of its existence. SS7/C7 is
re-sent. responsible for basic call control when we place
phone calls, receive busy signals and ringing
The Internet Protocol signals. The SS7/C7 network also provides
The Internet Protocol is a portion of the enhanced services such as:
ubiquitous TCP/IP suite. TCP/IP was originally
developed by the US Department of Defense to - toll-free (800/888) and toll (900) wireline
link dissimilar computers across many kinds of services
networks, both local area networks (LANs) and
wide area networks (WANs). - enhanced call features such as call forwarding,
calling party name/number display, and three-
Its key feature, providing multi-vendor way calling
connectivity, has made it popular among
network managers and administrators. The - Local Number Portability (LNP) to allow the
Internet Protocol tracks Internet addresses of new CLECs to attract subscribers from the
nodes, routes outgoing messages, and recognizes RBOCs without forcing subscriber to change
incoming messages. In other words, IP provides their phone numbers.
the addressing needed to enable routers to
forward packets across multiple networks. The ITU definition of SS7/C7 allows for national
variants such as the American National
IP provides a connectionless Datagram service, Standards Institute (ANSI) and Bell
which means that it attempts to deliver every Communications Research (Bellcore) standards
packet, but has no provision for re-transmitting used in North America and the European
lost or damaged packets. IP leaves such error Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
correction, if required, to higher-level protocols standard used in Europe.
such as TCP.
Compared to in-band signaling (non-SS7/C7),
IP addresses are 32 bits in length and have two SS7/C7 signaling provides: faster call setup
parts: the Network Identifier (Net ID) and the times (compared to in-band signaling using
Host Identifier (Host ID). The Net ID is assigned multi-frequency (MF) signaling tones), more
by a central authority and specifies the IP efficient use of voice circuits, support for
address, unique among all entities across the Intelligent Network (IN) services which require
Internet. The Host ID is assigned by the local signaling to network elements without voice
network administrator and identifies a particular trunks (e.g., database systems), and improved
host, station, or node within a given network, control over fraudulent network usage.
which means that it only has to be unique within
the local network.

Copyright 1998-1999 Mockingbird Networks. All rights reserved. 3

- SS7/C7 in IP Networks: SS7/C7 was created In the meantime, leadership companies such as
to control PSTN voice switches (SSPs) and did Mockingbird Networks are deploying IP
not take into account the effect of IP with PSTN telephony solutions which work seamlessly with
networks. A key to IP telephony’s success is to the SS7/C7 network. Mockingbird’s SS7/C7 call
interface the IP telephony Gateway into the control agent is software upgradeable allowing
SS7/C7 network in a fashion that allows it to be interoperability with any potential new protocol
managed much like a standard PSTN switch. which might become widely adopted. Even then
it would only be necessary for interoperability
This is the topic of several IETF BOFs from purposes with other IP telephony access products
which a standard might eventually emerge. It as our SS7/C7 call control is fully certified to run
may take a considerable period of time before in ANSI and ITU networks.
any one protocol becomes an industry-wide
standard. For example, the RsVP protocol has
been in an IETF committee for over three years
and is just now starting to become an adopted
protocol by more than two vendors.

"The nice thing about standards is that you have

so many to choose from; furthermore, if you do
not like any of them, you can just wait for next
year's model." [Tanenbaum]

Copyright 1998-1999 Mockingbird Networks. All rights reserved. 4