Summary: | This Master’s Thesis concerns the technical problems and solutions in the Telia Mobiles Golden Gate Architecture. The Golden Gate project will bridge service control from the IPnetwork to the circuit switched network. Connecting the different users of PSTN, GSM, W-LAN, and GPRS networks together will require solutions to many problems. Most of the problems have already been defined by Telia. Our task is to evaluate two parts of the Golden Gate architecture, namely the Interconnect- and Service Provider roles. The Interconnector provider connects networks of different technical standards and enables other network operators to reach Service Providers on the Internet or other IP-based networks. The role concerns mainly mapping between SS7 signaling and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), charging and billing. Via the Interconnector the Service Provider can connect different services to any network. We will describe the SIP-protocol in detail and then we will look into the mapping between SS7 and SIP. We will also propose a charging model. It is important to have a solution that supports roaming between the different networks, we will evaluate such a solution. Most of the protocols (INAP, ENUM, MAP and ISUP) that are involved in the Golden Gate architecture are not completely defined. There are many Internet Drafts that discuss the possible functionality of the protocols and the interworking between them. Many different Internet-workgroups are working with these issues. No one seems to have the right answers for the interconnection between the protocols involved. Since the IP-telephony will probably replace today’s telephony systems, it is important to ensure a suitable Quality of Service (QoS), security that guarantees privacy, and a fair billing function. These are the three major problems in the IP-telephony world. IP-Telephony or Voice over IP (VoIP) has been on the market for a long time, there are many 'free IP-call sites' that use VoIP, but the quality of the calls are not yet good enough to replace traditional telephony. Our task here is to make sure that the necessary quality of service is provided, and a reliable charging model is used.
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