Overview
SS7 (Signaling System 7) separates the information required to set up and manage telephone calls in the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN) onto a separate packet switched network (Signaling Network). It uses Message Signal Units (MSUs),
Link Status Signal Units (LSSUs), and Fill-In Signal Units (FISUs) as signal units. The main protocols include MTP (Message Transfer
Part - Level 1 to 3), SCCP (Signaling Connection Control Part), and ISUP (ISDN User Part).
Both real-time and off-line analysis present information in four layers:
- Raw HDLC Frame data as a hexadecimal and ASCII octet dump
- MTP2 and MTP3 information
- ISUP, TUP, SCCP etc. information
Different SS7 layers like MTP2, MTP3, ISUP, TUP, SCCP, INAP and many application layer protocols from GSM/GPRS network like
MAP, CAMEL(CAP), IS 41 etc are decoded according to ANSI/ITU/ETSI standards and displayed in an organized fashion.
GL Communications supports the following types of SS7 analyzers:
- Real-time SS7 Analyzer (Pre-requisites: GL's field proven E1 or T1 internal cards or USB Laptop E1 or T1 external units, required
licenses and Windows 2000/XP Operating System)
- Remote/Offline SS7 Analyzers (Pre-requisites: Hardware Dongles and Windows 2000/XP Operating System)
Also, visit GL's SIGTRAN protocol decode web page for a description of SIGTRAN - used to carry
Q.931 or SS7 ISUP messages between IP nodes such as a Signaling Gateway and Media Gateway Controller or Media Gateway.
SS7 Analyzer Main Features:
- Displays Summary, detail, hex-dump, statistics, and call trace views.
- Summary View displays MTP2, MTP3 information and SS7 Message types, Called and Calling number, SCCP message type, SSN,
INAP information, and more
- Detailed View displays easy to understand decodes of the user-selected frame
- Capable of decoding many important protocols from GSM/GPRS network i.e. MAP, CAP.
- Hex Dump View displays the frame information in HEX and ASCII format
- Statistics View displays call and MSU statistics at any link or entire link set
- Call trace isolates call specific information i.e. status of each call (i.e. active/completed), duration of completed call, OPC, DPC,
CIC, Called and Calling Party Numbers, and more
- Exports detailed and summary information to a comma delimited file for subsequent import into a database or spreadsheet
- Recorded trace files can be played back using HDLC playback option
- Flexibility to select/hide the call trace columns as required by the user.
- Call Detail Recording feature includes data link groups that help in defining the direction of the calls in a given network and
form logical groups comprised of unidirectional (either 'Forward' or 'Backward') data links.
- Supports filtering and search features based on Frame length, FSN, BSN, SSn, and so on
- HDLC (according to Q.921) based SS7 frames are parsed based on ANSI and ITU standards
- Ability to configure the .ini file for INAP, MAP and CAP decoding based on user-defined SSN value.
- Remote monitoring capability using GL's Network Surveillance System
Additional features supported by real-time/ remote SS7 analyzer are:
- Real-time filter and search features on various SS7 message types.
- Streams can be captured on the selected time slots (contiguous or non-contiguous), sub-channels or full bandwidth. Frames
may also be contained in either one, n x 64 kbps, or n x 56 kbps data channels.
- The following variations are accommodated in the software: inverted or non-inverted data, byte reversal or non-reversal.
- Recorded trace files can be played back using HDLC playback option.
- Multiple remote clients may access a single T1/E1 server, which enables monitoring two or more cards instantaneously.
(For Remote Analyzers only)
- Multiple streams of SS7 traffic on various T1/E1 channels can be simultaneously decoded with different GUI instances
Additional features supported by Offline SS7 Analyzer:
- Trace files for analysis can be loaded through simple command-line arguments
- Multiple trace files can be loaded simultaneously with different GUI instances for offline analysis
Supported Protocols/Interfaces
GL's SS7 Analyzer supports the following ANSI/ITU/ETSI/CHINA protocol standards:
SS7 ANSI/ITU/ETSI/CHINA
- MTP2: Q.704, ITU-T Blue Book / ANSI T1.111-1996
- MTP3: MTP2: Q.703, ITU-T Blue Book / ANSI T1.111-1996
- SCCP: Q.713, CCITT (ITU-T) Blue Book / ANSI T1.112-1996
- MAP : 3GPP TS 09.02 V7.14.0 (2003-09)
- INAP : Q1218 (10 / 95) and ETS 300 374 1, Sept, 1994
- CAMEL : 3GPP TS 29.078 6.3.0 (2004-09)
- ISUP : Q.763, CCITT (ITU-T) Blue Book / ANSI T1.113-1995
- TUP : Q.723, CCITT (ITU-T) Blue Book
- Test & Network Mgmt Messages :- Q.703, Q.704, ITU-T Blue Book / ANSI T1.111-1996
- TCAP (IS 41): Q.773, CCITT (ITU-T) Blue Book / ANSI T1.114 -1996/ TIA/EIA/IS-41.5-C
Summary and Detailed View
The SS7 analyzer application is invoked from the main menu of GL's T1/E1 Analyzer for real-time analysis. The Remote/offline
analyzer is invoked from the installation directory of the remote/offline SS7 analysis. The analyzer displays summary, detail and
hex dump views in different panes. The summary pane displays Direction, Frame Number, Time, Length, BSN, BIB, FSN, DPC, OPC,
CIC, SSN, Called and Calling number and various types of SS7 messages for all the frames. User can select a frame in summary
view to analyze and decode each frame in the detail view. The Hex dump view displays the frame information in HEX and ASCII format.
Screen Shot of Summary and Detailed View
Real-time/Remote and Off-Line Analysis
Users can capture and analyze SS7 frames in real-time and can record entire traffic or filtered traffic into trace file. The recorded
trace file can then be analyzed offline and exported to ASCII file, or printed. The raw data capturing requires user to specify
timeslots, bit inversion, octet bit reversion, user/network side, and hyper channel selection options. The captured raw data can then
be transmitted using HDLC playback file application.
Screen Shot of Real-time and Off-line Analysis
Filtering and Search
Users can record all or filtered traffic into a trace file. Filtering and search capability adds another powerful feature to the SS7
Analyzer. This feature can isolate required frames from all frames in real-time/remote/offline analysis. In real-time capturing, filter
based on length of frames can be set. The frames can be filtered after completion of capture based on BSN, BIB, FSN, FIB, Status
Field, OPC, DPC, SSN, CIC, Called and Calling party number and types of different SS7 message. Similarly, search capability helps
user to search for a particular frame based on specific search criteria
Screen Shot of Filtering and Search
Screen Shot of Real-time Capture Filter
Call Trace and Statistics View
Call trace defining important call specific parameters like Call ID, Call disposition, Call duration, Mobile ID, Called/Calling Number, Call
type (SMS/PDP/Setup/Location update etc) are displayed for SS7 (ITU/ANSI/ETSI/China) standards Call Detail Recording feature includes
data link groups that help in defining the direction of the calls in a given network and form logical groups comprised of unidirectional
(either 'Forward' or 'Backward') data links.
We can reliably handle SS7 capturing + CDR building on
- 2 bi-directional ports x 31 links = 62 uni-directional links
- 3 bi-directional ports x 20 links = 60 uni-directional links
Statistics is an important feature available in SS7 analyzer and can be obtained for all frames both in real-time as well as offline
mode. Numerous statistics can be obtained to study the performance and trend in the SS7 network and it is based on protocol fields
and different parameters e.g. Use Type (Key/Total/Field), Statistic type (Frame count, Byte count, Frames/Sec etc.) and patterns like
Range List, Wild card and Value Sets.
Screen Shot of Statistics and Call Trace Window
Enhanced Trace Saving Options
Users can control the captured trace files by saving the trace using different conventions such as trace files with user-defined
prefixes, trace file with date-time prefixes, and slider control to indicate the total number of files, file size, frame count, or time limit.
This feature also allows the captured frames to be saved into a trace file based on the filtering criteria set using display filter feature.
Screen Shot of Enhanced Trace Saving Options
Save/Load All Configuration Settings
Protocol Configuration window provides a consolidated interface for all the important settings required in the analyzer. This
includes various options such as protocol selection, startup options, stream/interface selection, filter/search criteria and so on. All
the configuration settings done in any of these options can be saved to a file, loaded from a configuration file, or user may just
revert to the default values using the default option.
Screen Shot of Save/Load All Configuration Settings
SS7 Simulation
If you are looking for GL's SS7 simulation capabilities, please visit the DCOSS SS7 page.
Typical CPU usage
The below table depicts the performance monitoring of SS7 in different scenarios for a PC configuration with pentium
4 processor, 2 Ghz clock speed and 256 Mb RAM.
| Monitoring |
No of cards |
No of SS7 links |
CPU Load |
| One Bidirectional T1 |
One Dual PCI T1 card |
21 SS7 links |
60% |
| Two Bi-directional T1s |
Two Dual PCI T1 cards |
10 SS7 links |
80% |
- Call rate is not an effecting factor as the SS7 links carry FISUs and LISUs.
- When the Analyzer is connected to Database via Sockets, additional 2-3% CPU usage is expected.
Bridge and Monitor Connections
Buyer's Guide:
Please Note: The XX in the Item No. refers to the hardware platform, listed at the bottom of the Buyer's Guide,
which the software will be running on. Therefore, XX can either be DPT, DPE, PCT, PCE, HDT, HDE, DLT, DLE or UTE depending upon
the hardware.
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