INAP stands for Intelligent Network Application Protocol or Intelligent Network Application Part. It is the signalling protocol used in

Intelligent Network The Intelligent Network (IN) is the standard network architecture specified in the ITU-T Q.1200 series recommendations. It is intended for fixed as well as Global System for Mobile Communications, mobile telecommunication, telecom networks. It al ...

ing (IN). It is part of the

Signalling System No. 7 Signalling System No. 7 (SS7) is a set of telephony signaling protocols developed in 1975, which is used to set up and tear down telephone calls in most parts of the world-wide public switched telephone network (PSTN). The protocol also perfo ...

(SS7) protocol suite, typically layered on top of the

Transaction Capabilities Application Part Transaction Capabilities Application Part, from ITU-T recommendations Q.771-Q.775 or ANSI T1.114 is a protocol for Signalling System 7 networks. Its primary purpose is to facilitate multiple concurrent dialogs between the same sub-systems on the ...

(TCAP). It can also be termed as logic for controlling telecommunication services migrated from traditional switching points to computer based service independent platform.
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Applications

The

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

(ITU) defines several "capability levels" for this protocol, starting with Capability Set 1 (CS-1).{{cite web , url=https://www.informit.com/library/content.aspx?b=Signaling_System_No_7&seqNum=107 , title=Signaling System No. 7 | Intelligent Network Application Protocol (INAP) , publisher=InformIT , date=2008-07-18 , accessdate=2014-02-26 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140304220101/https://www.informit.com/library/content.aspx?b=Signaling_System_No_7&seqNum=107 , archive-date=2014-03-04 , url-status=dead A typical application for the IN is a Number Translation service. For example, in the United Kingdom, 0800 numbers are freephone numbers and are translated to a geographic number using an IN platform. The Telephone exchanges decode the 0800 numbers to an IN trigger and the exchange connects to the IN. The telephone exchange uses

(TCAP),

Signaling Connection and Control Part {{SS7stack The Signalling Connection Control Part (SCCP) is a network layerITU-T Recommendation Q.1400
pr ...

(SCCP) and INAP and in IN terms is a

service switching point In telephony, a service switching point (SSP) is the telephone exchange that initially responds, when a telephone caller dials a number, by sending a query to a central database called a service control point (SCP) so that the call can be handled. ...

(SSP). It sends an INAP Initial Detection Point (IDP) message to the service control point (SCP). The SCP returns an INAP Connect message, which contains a geographic number to forward the call to. INAP messages are defined using

ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is a standard interface description language for defining data structures that can be serialized and deserialized in a cross-platform way. It is broadly used in telecommunications and computer networking, and ...

encoding. SCCP is used for the routing. Extended form of INAP is

Customised Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic Customized Applications for Mobile networks Enhanced Logic (CAMEL) is a set of standards designed to work on either a GSM core network or the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network. The framework provides tools for operators to ...

(CAMEL). TCAP is used to separate the transactions into discrete units.

References

Signaling System 7 Application layer protocols