The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an IETF-defined signaling protocol, widely used for controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol(IP). The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party (unicast) or multiparty (multicast) sessions consisting of one or several media streams. The modification can involve changing addresses or ports, inviting more participants, and adding or deleting media streams. Other feasible application examples include video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information, file transfer and online games.

SIP was originally designed by Henning Schulzrinne and Mark Handley starting in 1996. The latest version of the specification is RFC 3261 from the IETF Network Working Group.^[1] In November 2000, SIP was accepted as a 3GPP signaling protocol and permanent element of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture for IP-based streaming multimedia services in cellular systems.

The SIP protocol is an Application Layer protocol designed to be independent of the underlyingtransport layer; it can run on Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), or Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP).^[2] It is a text-based protocol, incorporating many elements of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP).

The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signalling protocol used for establishing sessions in an IP network. A session could be a simple two-way telephone call or it could be a collaborative multi-media conference session. The ability to establish these sessions means that a host of innovative services become possible, such as voice-enriched e-commerce, web page click-to-dial, Instant Messaging with buddy lists, and IP Centrex services.

Over the last couple of years, the Voice over IP community has adopted SIP as its protocol of choice for signalling. SIP is an RFC standard(RFC 3261) from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body responsible for administering and developing the mechanisms that comprise the Internet. SIP is still evolving and being extended as technology matures and SIP products are socialised in the marketplace.

The IETF's philosophy is one of simplicity: specify only what you need to specify. SIP is very much of this mould; having been developed purely as a mechanism to establish sessions, it does not know about the details of a session, it just initiates, terminates and modifies sessions. This simplicity means that SIP scales, it is extensible, and it sits comfortably in different architectures and deployment scenarios.

SIP is a request-response protocol that closely resembles two other Internet protocols, HTTP and SMTP (the protocols that power the world wide web and email); consequently, SIP sits comfortably alongside Internet applications. Using SIP, telephony becomes another web application and integrates easily into other Internet services. SIP is a simple toolkit that service providers can use to build converged voice and multimedia services.

In order to provide telephony services there is a need for a number of different standards and protocols to come together - specifically to ensure transport (RTP), to authenticate users (RADIUS, DIAMETER), to provide directories (LDAP), to be able to guarantee voice quality (RSVP, YESSIR) and to inter-work with today's telephone network. Here we will only cover SIP.