In the above processes, the MTC-IWF or a dedicated IWF or an SMS Router implements signaling conversion between an MAP protocol and a Diameter protocol.

Accordingly, this verification process involves multi-factor authentication factors contained within the MAP protocol.

The SCP then makes the conversion to traditional MAP protocol when necessary to communicate with other network entities.

The second network element uses the connection-specific security association to decrypt/decode the MAP message.

The large size of the map messages may constitute a problem in the system, and thus the 5 present solution intends to alleviate this problem.