What is SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and how it applies to VoIP?

I like to think of SIP like a language. Just like you may speak English, Spanish, or French, computers also speak a variety of languages and communicate with those specific rules of communication. SIP or Session Initiation Protocol was created to bring a standard set of communication rules to Voice Over Internet Protocol or VoIP so that there was a standard for sending your voice across the internet.


Why is SIP Important?

When VoIP first began all of the Business Phone System manufacturers created their own communication languages for their specific products. Cisco created “Skinny” protocol; others like Shoretel used MGCP and other communication languages. This is why you can’t take a Cisco Skinny phone and put it on a Shoretel and a Shoretel MGCP phone and put it on a Cisco. They can only communicate with their own proprietary phones and equipment and are not designed to interoperate with other equipment. The advantage for these corporations of being proprietary is that your customers can only purchase equipment and services from them. This maintains higher margins for these companies and it also means that when you purchase their products you are locked in to what they provide. Because there were so many different languages being used their began to be a need for systems to communicate together and long story short the SIP protocol was ratified as the standard that the industry would use. Although many of the proprietary manufacturers are still using their proprietary protocols they have to develop their products to use SIP as the entire industry has moved this direction. Midland believes that our customers get the best value, flexibility, and that they protect their investments by adhering to standards like SIP. This is why the products and services that we provide are standards based. Zultys is a SIP Standard Business Phone System platform and is a great example of this as we can put virtually any SIP Standard phone on to a Zultys platform. This allows us to look at hundreds of models of phones and applications that can meet your specific needs and design a solution to meet those needs. SIP platforms are typically less expensive as well because they have more market competition. Over the term of the investment SIP standard platforms will provide the best value and flexibility.