Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has become the buzz word in the voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone system world. What does it do and why is it important to the success of your business?
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has become the buzz word in the voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone system world. What does it do and why is it important to the success of your business?
History of SIP
SIP was introduced to the VoIP world in 1996 and was formally standardized in 1999. What SIP brought to the industry was a signaling and call setup protocol for IP-based communications. SIP can support call processing functions and features currently provided by the public switched telephone network (PSTN). By its design, SIP is extendable to support additional media services including media streaming, video conferencing, instant messaging and presence information.
What Drives SIP
Cost is now one of the main motivators of SIP sales. SIP Trunking easily costs 50% less than traditional services such as POTS lines or digital PRI lines. Additionally, SIP trunk prices have been dropping 5-7% each year. Even if you do not have a VoIP phone system, SIP Trunking can be made available for your existing equipment.
Examples of SIP
- Hosted and Cloud PBX - Provides PBX functionality (such as automated attendant, voicemail, call transfer, etc.) without having to own or maintain onsite equipment. In most cases the only equipment on site are handsets and a gateway.
- SIP Trunking - Delivers telephone and other unified communications services in over the Internet and delivers them directly to your VoIP or traditional phone system
- Unified Communications - SIP is the underlying layer for applications like unified messaging, instant messaging/chat, conferencing, presence and many other applications. Demand will continue to grow for these types of technologies.
- Collaboration - Real-time protocol means real-time collaboration. In 2011 study, 39% of IT managers reported that collaboration was important. Today that study finds that 62% of IT managers suggest that collaboration technologies, such as video conferencing, are important to their business.