Abstract: A system and method is disclosed for correlating transaction messages in a communications network into transaction records. A plurality of monitoring units capture the messages from the links in the communication network. A processor or state machine processes the correlated transaction records and detects calls to particular destination telephone numbers. Transactions affecting particular destination point codes can also be detected or monitored. When a short-term threshold number of calls to a particular telephone number are detected, the detecting monitor instructs other monitors to track calls to that telephone number. If a long-term threshold number of calls are detected for the destination telephone number, then a mass call alarm is generated. Information comprising the highly called destination telephone number, dialed number, destination point code, and top originating point codes is provided to the service provider following the mass call alarm.

Abstract: A system and method for capturing signaling units at international gateways in a communications network is disclosed. The signaling units are processed to determine the source and destination networks for the associated calls. The country code, nature of address field, destination point code and origination point code is used to process each message. Data about the messages that pass through the international gateway is stored to a memory device. The data can be recalled for each originating or destination network in the form of performance or quality of service statistics.

Abstract: A system and method for processing transaction signaling units is disclosed. A plurality of interlinked network monitoring devices capture signaling units on links in a communications network. The signaling units have unique transaction identifiers which correlate the signaling unit to a specific transaction. The monitoring devices comprise a number of processors, each of the transactions is assigned to a specific processor. The system collects all of the signaling units for each transactions and combine the signaling units into a plurality of transaction records. The processors are capable of correlating multiple detections of individual messages and sorting the individual signaling units into time order. A processor receives signaling units from the communications links and determines whether it is responsible for processing the transaction that corresponds to the signaling units. If the processor has been assigned the corresponding transaction, then the signaling unit is processed locally.

Abstract: A system and method for generating call detail records in a Signaling System 7 (SS7) network is disclosed. Network monitors that are capable of non-intrusively capturing all signaling units in an SS7 network are used to generate a complete record for all TCAP transactions. Users configure CDR profiles that are used to filter the TCAP transaction records. A CDR application filters the TCAP records by parsing out signaling unit components that have been selected by the user in the CDR profile. The selected TCAP message components are then formatted into a CDR record which is sent to an external system, such as the user's billing system.