An SS7 probe is a physical device to obtain signalling and/or bearer information from a telecommunications network, such as the PSTN or a corporate telephone system.
The probe passively monitors the E1/T1 or SDH/SONET bearer channels, and extracts the signalling information for onward presentation to an application.
Applications served by probes include solutions for inter-carrier billing, revenue loss (by-pass/phantom traffic and analysis services), fraud prevention, billing, local number portability, quality of service, surveillance (global call trace), maintenance (protocol analysis), traffic engineering (link and trunk forecasting), alarming and SS7, Sigtran and IS-41 monitoring.
Lawful interception concerns the delivery of calls and data to government approved reception centres.
Opportunities for probing occur in both traditional TDM infrastructure as well as in ATM and IP networks.