Editing Message Transfer Part (section)

{{primary sources|date=August 2012}}
{{SS7 stack|Deep=}}
The '''Message Transfer Part''' (MTP) is part of the [[Signaling System 7]] (SS7) used for communication in [[Public Switched Telephone Network]]s. MTP is responsible for reliable, unduplicated and in-sequence transport of SS7 messages between communication partners.

MTP is formally defined primarily in [[ITU-T]] recommendations
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.701/en/ Q.701],
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.702/en/ Q.702],
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.703/en/ Q.703],
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.704/en/ Q.704] and
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.705/en/ Q.705].
Tests for the MTP are specified in the [[ITU-T]] recommendations
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.781/en/ Q.781] for MTP2 and in
[http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-Q.782/en/ Q.782] for MTP3. These tests are used to validate the correct implementation of the MTP protocol.

Different countries use different variants of the MTP protocols. In North America, the formal standard followed is [[ANSI]] T1.111. In Europe, national MTP protocols are based on [[ETSI]]
[http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=19130 EN 300-0088-1].