Consider SIP Protocol for Voice Communications
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the transport technology for person-to-person voice traffic over the Internet. Its defining specifications come from the SIP working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force. SIP provides access to the public switched telephone network for voice data at 3 kHz bandwidth and common number dialing using Voice over IP (VoIP). It can also be extended to handle IP telephony combined with video and instant messaging. Forthcoming enhancements will enable SIP applications such as video conference calls, application sharing, home monitoring, and interactive gaming for businesses in Box Butte.
SIP is in most cases thought of as a way to implement the operation of typical telephony over an IP network. It is replacing the older, less versatile protocols used in the old days such as H.323 and MGCP. These older protocols functioned at a very low level to connect IP phones to the public telephone system. SIP, however, provides an elegant and straightforward way to network the enterprise. For instance, SIP uses email addresses as the SIP address instead of a telephone number over the regular telephone network.
Before installing a SIP solution in your organization, you should consider the appropriate settings of your corporate firewall to accept SIP. Many of the typical firewalls already installed in business offices are not developed to support the SIP protocol. First, SIP media streams are transferred over dynamically assigned UDP ports that are typically closed on firewalls. Second, SIP clients within a firewall can not be reached using IP addresses since these addresses are local and private to the LAN. Third, you need to ensure that either your T1 line broadband carrier or Metro fiber carrier is able to handle the SIP protocol from your internal network to the outside world. Your IT manager will need to ascertain how to properly support SIP to overcome these technical challenges. By including a SIP proxy and registrar for managing the firewall, it is possible to deal with complex SIP scenarios for reliable and private communications.
