A Voice over Packet (VoP) network includes an ingress gateway and an egress gateway for transparent transport of signaling messages between source and destination telephony switches utilizing respective source and destination telephony signaling protocols. The ingress gateway is configured for interfacing with the source telephony switch according to the source telephony signaling protocol and the egress gateway is configured for interfacing with the destination telephony switch according to the destination telephony signaling protocol. The ingress gateway and the egress gateway are configured for sharing information, based on a signaling message received by the ingress gateway from the source telephony switch, to determine a selected exchange type to be used by the ingress gateway and egress gateway in transporting the signaling message to the destination telephony switch.