SIP Protocol - What it is & how it works?

In this article, we're going to be discussing "SIP Protocol"

As you remember from my previous articles, SIP stands for session initiation protocol and it's this very technology that makes VoIP calls possible at its heart. 

SIP is defined as the application layer protocol that initiates, maintains, and terminates IP-based calls, chats, and messaging.

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is used to establish a “session” between 2 or more participants, modify that session, and eventually terminate that session. It has found its MAJOR use in the world of IP Telephony.

The fact that SIP is an open standard has sparked enormous interest in the telephony market, and manufacturers shipping SIP-based phones have seen tremendous growth in this sector.

Without this session management element, user-facing applications simply wouldn't work.

While it may not be the only method of powering VoIP communication, it's certainly the preferred path for most major service providers.

History

The protocol itself is actually two years older than both Google and Paypal so it's been here for quite some time.

It was originally developed in 1996 by Mark Handley, Henning Schulzrinne, Eve Schooler, and Jonathan Rosenberg. Soon after its release companies realized that it was a viable method of simplifying all real-time calls so they adopted it on a wider scale than it was originally intended. 

In 1999 the SIP protocol was standardized as RFC 2543. The creation of SIP provides the standard by which SIP Trunking will operate.

What makes sip technology so unique is that it got its start in the internet sector rather than the telecommunications industry, so it was already in a good position to grow alongside the other tech pioneers.

Even more amazing is the simple method it uses to initiate these calls as well as its sheer versatility. 

To start a call data packets are sent from one IP to another any SIP-enabled device can take these inbound calls which means you'll be able to pick up on your laptop just as easily as you would on your smartphone.

While voice calls have historically been the biggest use of sip technology it's starting to seep into the video conferencing space as well as a matter of fact it wouldn't even be a surprise to see it overtake h323 as the most common protocol for video conferencing in the near future, that's all for now.

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Cheers!