Why You Need SIP Protocol for Voice Communications
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the transmission protocol for person-to-person real time traffic over the Web. Its technical 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 deal with IP telephony in conjunction with video and instant messaging. Forthcoming improvements will enable SIP applications like video conference calls, application sharing, home monitoring, and interactive gaming for companies in Wading River.
Suppliers of SIP hardware are rapidly designing innovative products and software to take advantage of this new Internet communications method. SIP telephones, PC client applications, SIP servers, routers, and firewalls are now on the market from companies such as Ingate Systems and Cisco.
Before installing a SIP plan in your business, you should think about the proper settings of your corporate firewall to support SIP. Many of the typical firewalls currently installed in business offices are not developed to allow the SIP protocol. First, SIP media streams are transferred over dynamically assigned UDP ports that are normally blocked on firewalls. Second, SIP clients within a firewall can not be reached using IP addresses because these addresses are local and private to the LAN. Third, you need to ensure that either your T1 line carrier or Ethernet fiber service is able to support the SIP protocol from your internal network to the outside world. Your IT manager will need to ascertain how to appropriately support SIP to overcome these technical challenges. By including a SIP proxy and registrar for managing the firewall, it is possible to deal with complicated SIP scenarios for reliable and confidential communications.
