Consider SIP Protocol for Voice Communications
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the transport protocol for person-to-person real time traffic over the Internet. Its technical specifications come from the SIP working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force. SIP gives 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. Future improvements will enable SIP applications such as video conference calls, application sharing, home monitoring, and interactive gaming for companies in Douglas.
Suppliers of SIP hardware are quickly creating new products and software to get the upper hand in this new Internet communications method. SIP telephones, PC client applications, SIP servers, routers, and firewalls are now obtainable from companies such as Ingate Systems and Cisco.
Prior to setting up a SIP solution in your business, you should take into account the proper configuration of your corporate firewall to accept SIP. Many of the typical firewalls currently deployed in business offices are not developed to support the SIP protocol. First, SIP media streams are transmitted over dynamically assigned UDP ports that are usually shut on firewalls. Second, SIP clients inside a firewall can not be accessed 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 service is able to support the SIP protocol from your internal network to the outside world. Your IT manager will need to evaluate how to correctly support SIP to get around these technical issues. By adding a SIP proxy and registrar for managing the firewall, it is possible to deal with complex SIP scenarios for secure and confidential communications.
