Methods and systems for providing short message gateway functionality in a telecommunications network

• US 20050186979A1
• Filed: 04/22/2005
• Published: 08/25/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tekelec Global, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Tekelec
• Inventors: Bantukul, Apirux, Marsico, Peter J., Schaedler, Richard E., McCann, Thomas M., Rao, Raghavendra G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,366,530 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/28 Number portability ; Network address portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/184 Messaging devices, e.g. message centre

Abstract

A short message gateway may include signal transfer point (STP) functionality, mobile originating short message service center (SMSC) functionality, and short message delivery point-to-point (SMPP) gateway functionality. The short message gateway may receive an SS7 message including a short message payload. The short message gateway may formulate an SMPP message including the short message payload and access one or more internal address resolution and/or number portability databases to determine the destination address for the SMPP message. The short message gateway may then forward the SMPP message to its destination.

Claims

1. A short message gateway comprising:

(a) an SS7 interface for sending and receiving SS7 messages via an SS7 network;

(b) an SMS gateway application operatively associated with the SS7 interface for receiving SS7 messages including short message payloads, for performing originating SMSC and SMPP gateway functionality for converting the SS7 messages into SMPP messages including the short message payloads and determining mobile terminating short message service center (SMSC) addresses for the SMPP messages; and

(c) an SMPP interface operatively associated with the SMS gateway application for sending the SMPP messages to destination mobile terminating SMSCs.

2. The short message gateway of claim 1 wherein the SS7 interface includes SS7 MTP routing functionality.

3. The short message gateway of claim 1 wherein the application engine module includes number portability translation functionality for performing number portability translations for received SS7 messages containing SMS payloads that are directed to ported mobile subscribers.

4. The short message gateway of claim 3 wherein the application engine module is adapted to use the number portability translations to determine the mobile terminating SMSC addresses for SMPP messages intended for ported subscribers.

5. The short message gateway of claim 1 wherein the SMPP interface includes SMPP over IP functionality for sending the SMPP messages to the mobile terminating SMSC over an IP network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the SMS payloads is from an originating mobile subscriber and is addressed to a terminating mobile subscriber.

7. A method for communicating a short message payload to a destination, the method comprising:

(a) receiving, at a short message gateway, an SS7-based message including a destination identifier and a short message payload;

(b) at the short message gateway, resolving the destination identifier to a routable destination address;

(c) formulating an SMPP-based message including the short message payload; and

(d) transmitting the SMPP-based message from the short message gateway to the destination address.

8. The method of claim 7 where the SMPP-based message comprises an SMPP Submit_SM message.

9. The method of claim 7 where the destination identifier comprises a network entity address identifier.

10. The method of claim 7 where the destination identifier comprises an Internet protocol (IP) address.

11. The method of claim 10 where the IP address comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) identifier.

12. The method of claim 7 wherein the SMS payload is from an originating subscriber and is addressed to a terminating subscriber.