SIGNALLING AND TRANSPORT OF PRIORITY BASED CONTROL PROTOCOL MESSAGES OVER A SWITCHED COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for managing signaling of control protocol messages in a telecommunications node. More particularly, the invention relates to priority based signaling and transporting of control protocol messages in a telecommunications node. The present invention provides a method and apparatus for managing signaling in a telecommunications node, the node having separated BC and CC functionalities, the node also having control protocol messages for communication between the functionalities, including the steps of: allocating a priority value to a control protocol message, selectively processing the control protocol message based on the allocated priority value. Preferably, the allocated priority value is mapped to a priority mechanism of a signaling transport for transmission over a switched communications network.