ATM signaling transport network architectures and analysis

As public carriers plan to offer new broadband services and consolidate different types of services into a single ATM network platform, the identification of an appropriate target broadband signaling transport network architecture is necessary to ensure smooth and cost-effective signaling network evolution. A number of suggestions have been made for possible broadband signaling transport architectures, ranging from the retention of signal transfer points (STPs) to the adoption of a fully distributed signaling transport architecture supporting the associated signaling mode only. The purpose of this article is to describe these architecture alternatives and discuss their qualitative and quantitative tradeoffs. The authors focus on public networks only