Methods and systems for routing SS7 messages based on DPC-based routing
rules and non-DPC-based routing rules are disclosed. For a message
containing signaling system 7 (SS7) information, a message routing
function at an SS7 signaling message routing node searches a list of
message routing rules using a search key including a DPC parameter
extracted from the signaling message. If a matching entry is not located
in the first routing rule list, a default SS7 routing rule may be used to
route the message. The default routing rule may include wildcard values
for each of the network ID, network cluster, and cluster member
components of the DPC address field. Multiple default routing rules may
be defined using various SS7 discriminator parameters. In addition, new
DPC-based routing rules can be created and added to the list of DPC-based
routing rules based on lookups in the set of non-DPC-based routing rules.