scope:

The scope of this Technical Report (TR) is to capture the results of a feasibility study on SS7 signalling transport (e.g. MAP & CAP) in a 3GPP core network with SCCP-User Adaptation (SUA) for Release-5.

With this purpose in mind, this TR evaluates the advantages and disadvantages associated with the implementation of SUA in the core network, and compares it with the SCCP/M3UA option. Therefore, an overview of M3UA is provided in this document for reference. This TR covers all scenarios such as SUA peer to peer as well as interworking with legacy SS7 network, plus the interworking between SUA and SCCP/M3UA. This TR also identifies and studies the technical issues related to SUA implementation and proposes the possible technical solutions that will enable the effient implementation of SUA, with minimum impacts on the available services.

More generally, the aim of this TR is to identify and strive to solve all issues introduced by such evolution of the core network signalling. At the end of the feasibility study, the open issues are reported and their importance is assessed. Also discussed are the benefits and drawbacks with respect to the introduction of SUA into 3GPP core network signalling.