Gateway entity for distinguishing between different messages without full knowledge of underlying protocol

摘要

A gateway and method for distinguishing between different types of messages without requiring the gateway to be fully aware of the communication protocol. The gateway passes through messages from application entities to network elements and vice versa. The gateway determines a transaction identifier or sequence step information, and compares the transaction identifier or sequence step information with ones previously stored. The comparison result is used to determine whether a message is an initial message or a response message to the initial message, and whether the message is a first or subsequent message, respectively.