Why You Need SIP Protocol for Voice Over IP
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the transport protocol for person-to-person voice data over the Internet. 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 expanded to handle IP telephony in conjunction with video and instant messaging. Future improvements will allow SIP applications like video conference calls, application sharing, home monitoring, and interactive gaming for businesses in Comfort.
SIP is commonly associated with a means to emulate the operation of typical telephony over an IP network. It is replacing the older, less versatile protocols used in the past 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, on the other hand, provides an elegant and well-defined way to network the enterprise. For instance, SIP uses email addresses as the SIP address in place of a telephone number over the regular telephone network.
Before installing a SIP plan in your organization, you should think about the proper settings of your corporate firewall to support SIP. Many of the common firewalls already 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 blocked on firewalls. Second, SIP clients within a firewall can not be accessed using IP addresses since these addresses are local and unique to the LAN. Third, you need to ensure that either your T1 line broadband carrier or Metro fiber carrier is able to support the SIP protocol from your internal network to the outside world. Your IT manager will need to evaluate how to properly support SIP to overcome these technical issues. By adding a SIP proxy and registrar for controlling the firewall, it is feasible to handle complex SIP scenarios for reliable and private communications.
