SS7 Device Drivers

There are two types of SS7 drivers: hardware drivers and network drivers.

Hardware drivers are device drivers that control actual hardware devices to provide SS7 links and other services required by the call control stacks. Hardware drivers are listed under "Hardware Drivers" below.

Network drivers are pseudo-device drivers that emulate an SS7 signalling link using more common IP network connections. Network drivers are listed under "Network Drivers" below.

Hardware Drivers

The current hardware device driver projects are listed below. The OpenSS7 SS7 stack has been designed to permit new hardware devices to be easily integrated into the SS7 stack by writing a single low-level driver. If you are interested in a driver for a device that is not listed here, see What hardware is supported? for suggestions.

Current hardware device driver projects are as follows:

T100P-SS7, E100P-SS7 Device Driver

The T100P-SS7 (T1) and E100P-SS7 (E1) are very affordable 4-Span T1 and E1 cards marketed by OpenSS7 Corporation in conjuction with the board fabricator Digium. Proceeds from the resale of these cards funnels back into the OpenSS7 Project.

This is a good choice for a low-density OpenSS7 SS7 applications as these cards will run 24 to 31 SS7 links running wide open. Whether you need to set up a small network configuration in the lab, or whether you need to run SS7 in the wide open network, these boards provide good low-scale capabilities.

T400P-SS7, E400P-SS7 Device Driver

The T400P-SS7 (T1) and E400P-SS7 (E1) are very affordable 4-Span T1 and E1 cards marketed by OpenSS7 Corporation in conjuction with the board fabricator Digium. Proceeds from the resale of these cards funnels back into the OpenSS7 Project.

This is a good choice for a high-density OpenSS7 SS7 applications as these cards will run 96 to 128 SS7 links running wide open. Whether you need to set up a large network configuration in the lab, or whether you need to run SS7 in the wide open network, these boards outperform most offerings in cost and density.

Tormenta Device Driver

The Tormenta is an T1 card that used to be sold through BSD Telecommunications of Mexico. This was a low-cost ISA card capable of supporting two T1-spans. The project to develop a driver for this card is deprecated since the availability of the PCI cards above (X100P-SS7 and X400P-SS7) provide a better hardware solution.

CPC388 Device Driver

The CPC-388 card is an affordable cPCI 8-Span E1/T1/J1 card offered by Performance Technologies, Inc. PTI has donated a couple of these cards and other resources to the OpenSS7 Project in the past. See our Sponsors Page.

This is an excellent choice for carrier class solutions using the OpenSS7 SS7 stack. The card can run an embedded Linux operating system on the MPC-860 onboard processor and can switch channels across a H.110 backplane. It also supports a PCMIG-2.17 dual rail Ethernet backplane for SIGTRAN, system redundancy and VoIP applications.

PCA-200E Device Driver

The PCA-200E is a popular PCI ATM card that has support for Linux ATM in the Linux Kernel. We have one of these cards lying around. We were toying with building a driver for MTP3b and AAL2/AAL3 support for the card.

ACB56 Device Driver

The ACB56 card is a V.35 ISA card that supports a single SS7 link. This is one of the original cards that the OpenSS7 Project had available and is one of the original drivers. This card is still available from SeaLevel systems (see What hardware is supported? for more infromation).

This is not a bad choice if you need just a couple of SS7 links and happen to have these cards kicking around. They are too expensive when compared to the cost/density of the solutions above. For example, for V.35 access it might be better to use the X100P-SS7 card with a T1/V.35 channel bank.

Network Drivers

The current network device driver projects are listed below. The OpenSS7 SS7 stack has been designed to permit new network devices to be easily integrated into the SS7 stack by writing a pushable module. The device drivers listed are for open standard network transports such as Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and Service-Specific Connection Oriented Protocol (SSCOP). Proprietary protoocls are not supportable at this time.

Current network driver projects are as follows:

SS7 MTP2-User Peer-to-Peer Adaptation Layer

The M2PA device driver is a pushable STREAMS module that can be pushed over a Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) stream or other transport stream supporting the Transport Provider Interface (TPI).

This network driver is part of the OpenSS7 SIGTRAN stack and allows the SS7 stack to be used without any specialized hardware devices.

IP SS7 Device Driver

The IPSS7 device driver is a pushable STREAMS module that can be pushed over a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) stream or other connectionless transport stream supporting the Transport Provider Interface (TPI).

This network driver is a part of the OpenSS7 SS7 stack and allows the SS7 stack to be used without any specialized hardware devices.

MTP3b Device Driver

The MTP3b device driver is a pushable STREAMS module that can be pushed over a Service-Specific Connection Oriented Protocol (SSCOP) stream or other transport stream supporting the Network Provider Interface (NPI) with recovery and retrieval (SAAL) extensions.

This network driver is a part of the OpenSS7 SS7 stack and allows the SS7 stack to be used without any specialized hardware devices.