A discovery protocol for use in a mobile telecommunications network where the protocol is used to discover a target core network component of the network. The network comprises base station core network components having at least one Mobile Management Entity (MME), a Serving Gateway (SGW) a Packet Gateway (PGW), an HSS; and a discovery request distributor connected to all other network components. The protocol utilizes the steps of: sending a discovery request from a first core network component to a discovery request distributor, where the discovery request includes a target identifier of a target core network component to be discovered; forwarding the discovery request to all other core network components within the network; receiving a discovery response at the first network component, from an identified target core network component with the defined target identifier and no responses from the other target core network components.