Product Overview1This chapter contains the following information about IP phones: VoIP Principle SIP Components SIP IP Phone ModelsVoIPVoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a technology using the Internet Protocol instead oftraditional Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) technology for voicecommunications.It is a family of technologies, methodologies, communication protocols, andtransmission techniques for the delivery of voice communications and multimediasessions over IP networks. The H.323 and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) are twopopular VoIP protocols that are found in widespread implementation.H.323H.323 is a recommendation from the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector(ITU-T) that defines the protocols to provide audio-visual communication sessions onany packet network. The H.323 standard addresses call signaling and control,multimedia transport and control, and bandwidth control for point-to-point andmulti-point conferences.It is widely implemented by voice and video conference equipment manufacturers, isused within various Internet real-time applications such as GnuGK and NetMeeting andis widely deployed by service providers and enterprises for both voice and videoservices over IP networks.SIPSIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF’s) standardfor multimedia conferencing over IP. It is an ASCII-based, application-layer controlprotocol (defined in RFC 3261) that can be used to establish, maintain, and terminatecalls between two or more endpoints. Like other VoIP protocols, SIP is designed toaddress functions of signaling and session management within a packet telephonynetwork. Signaling allows call information to be carried across network boundaries.Session management provides the ability to control attributes of an end-to-end call.