Increased international business competition, combined with the worldwide proliferation of multinational corporations, has accelerated the demand for universal, uniform, global telecommunications services. AT&T has designed an intelligent network platform that facilitates consolidating various national networks into a global system that will provide advanced universal network-based services on a worldwide basis. This platform will permit global carriers to offer multinational business customers a full portfolio of global information movement and management services. Based on International Telephone and Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCITT) recommendations, the architecture is flexible and evolvable and offers telecommunications carriers the capability to connect with one another and provide functionally equivalent services on a worldwide basis. This architecture can accommodate the many types of possible national network infrastructures and configurations, ranging from networks offering only basic telephone service to those offering the advanced capabilities of an intelligent network.