December 07, 2005
How SIP Works
Have you ever wondered why long distance calls cost so much? In part
the reason is because telephone lines cost so much. When driving, you
might occasionally see a telephone crew maintaining a telephone line,
but what you may have never considered is that there are literally
thousands of individuals working around the clock to maintain our
telephone lines.
The telephony system works via a cog and wheel setup. What this
means is that every long distance call you make is routed along a
telephone wire to a central station, where your voice is routed to
another central station, which is finally carried to the person with
whom you are trying to communicate. For the call to be maintained, the
entire time you are speaking, a space along all the lines in between
you and the person you are talking with must be completely devoted to
you. Because millions of people are talking at the same time, the
little space along the telephone lines becomes rather desired property.
And like all things desired, the price is high. Before recent
innovations, however, there were no alternatives, so everyone
grudgingly paid the often costly long-distance telephone bill.
SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, has turned the telephony world
upside down. Specifically, SIP refers to a protocol that allows
computers to talk to each other without going through a central
station. Practically, what that means for you and me is that it is no
longer necessary to pay for expensive telephone lines to complete our
calls. SIP technology is a relatively new development in which calls
are made on a peer-to-peer rather than cog and wheel network. What that
means, is that you are now able to call people directly from your SIP
enabled phone to theirs. This ends up being radically cheaper than the
old way of calling.
The SIP system does not require a central computer and operators
like the old telephony system did. Rather, your computer, or SIP
enabled phone, does all the routing for you.
SIP has been around for a number of years, but only recently has it
begun to go mainstream and take off in popularity. This quick increase
in interest over SIP is due to companies like Mobalex, who were aware
of the fact that over the generations we have come to expect certain
tones, buttons, and protocols from our phones. So what they have done
is to transpose those functions onto the SIP system. Rather than
forcing users to communicate in a completely new way, what these
companies have done is to provide a calling experience which from the
user’s perspective is completely identical to traditional telephony.
SIP is typically offered in two formats, computer based and
hardware based. Computer based SIP is a system that allows you to make
calls using your computer as the router and communicating via a headset
on your computer. The more practical and popular version, however,
actually provides you with new SIP enabled telephone handsets or
converts your existing phones to SIP. By eliminating any technical
requirements, modern SIP providers have made using the system as easy,
or easier, than using a traditional phone. I say easier, because many
companies are able to take advantage of the fact that the system is
internet based to provide you with some very unique benefits. These
include the ability to adjust your plan, change your calling options,
and even pay your bill from the same website.
SIP technology is quite revolutionary in the world of
communication. By creating a peer-to-peer network, SIP has been able to
radically undercut the prices of traditional telephony, take advantage
of the Internet, and still maintain the ease of traditional telephony.
It is merely a matter of time before we are all using SIP for all of
our telephoning needs.
About the Author: Jim Sherman writes about interesting topics such as SIP. See http://www.mobalex.com/products/sip4pbx.html for more information.
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