US Patent 7433368 Signaling transport converter

For transmitting data in a communication network between a signaling entity and a peer signaling entity through a transport layer, such as TCP, a signaling transport converter STC on TCP is disclosed. The STC on TCP provides a signaling transport service for a connection between the signaling entity and the transport layer and comprises an interface to the signaling entity and an interface to the transport layer. The STC on TCP processes data to be exchanged between the signaling entity and the transport layer for a transparent transfer of the data to the peer signaling entity by means of the TCP transport layer. For providing a transaction-oriented data transport service, the STC on TCP may include a Message Wrapper which delineates a TCP based message stream and encapsulates/decapsulates the data to be exchanged.