What is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)?

Pick up that phone and dial a number; you are technically initiating a “session” although this technical term wasn’t really used as much when we just had to deal with normal telephone connections. If you are using an IP based phone network or a VoIP set-up, you’ll see this term being thrown around a lot.

A SIP (Session Initiation protocol) is used to “Create, manage, and terminate sessions in an IP based network”, according to SIP Tutorial.

It was in March 1999 that the SIP protocol was born. It was to address the growing demand for IP telephony. SIP helps establish user location (using network addresses), provides for feature negotiation, allows businesses to manage calls (such as adding more people to the conversation dropping calls), and much more.

As with most protocols, there are certain components in SIP that you’d do well to know about: the User Agent Client (UAC) and User Agent Server (UAS). Just as it’s with traditional networking terminology, clients are end users who use systems (such as an IP telephony system). Servers are the components that “serve” demands clients make such as to deliver the call, provide information, process calls, support calls by providing bandwidth, redirect calls, etc.

If you’d like to learn a lot more about SIP and understand the mechanics of the protocol, here’s a helpful PDF document from the Columbia University that does a great job of it.

We’ll, of course, look at how it applies to your business. How does SIP help VoIP do what it does for businesses? Where does the technology finally fit in?

• SIP allows for reduced and optimal IP telephony infrastructure. Businesses save hundreds of thousands of dollars by investing in optimal systems.
• SIP provides enterprise level telecommunication systems by providing an Interface that allow access to multiple originating points and end points. It scales perfectly as businesses grow.
• SIP allows for sheer flexibility. SIP Trunking allows you to merge voice and data. SIP Trunking also leverages unused bandwidth in your network, maximizes your current investments, consolidates resources, and responds dynamically to your needs.
• Finally, it allows businesses to have more choices. You now have the capability to initiate and end multiple phone sessions simultaneously, use services such call forwarding, routing, IP conferencing, Unified Messaging, and much more.

We know you don’t need to understand technical details of SIP as much as knowing how it helps your business. If you’d like our help in deploying VoIP networks using SIP, do give us a tinkle and we’ll rush.