February 4, 2010
IMTC's Member Companies Author a Series of Best Common Practices for SIP
By Anshu Shrivastava, TMCnet Contributor
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The International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium has announced that its member companies have authored a series of Best Common Practices documents for extending session initiation protocol standards to be used as a mainstream communications protocol for videoconferencing.
The definition enables video communication devices to interoperate with IP telephony infrastructure and UC applications. IMTC officials said that this allows for common feature sets and interoperability across all video, voice and UC solutions.
Also, the new SIP definition enables the future integration of video communications into the IP Multi-Media Subsystem architecture, designed to be the platform for any-to-any delivery for all communications devices, said IMC officials.
The IMTC is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and facilitate the development and use of interoperable, real-time, multimedia telecommunication products and services based on open international standards.
The expanded definition established by the organization working group enables the full power of Video Communications to be integrated into the IP telephony and unified Communication infrastructure by utilizing a common protocol shared by all communications devices, said Ashish Goyal of LifeSize (News - Alert) Communications, chair of the IMTC SIP Parity Activity Group.
This means expanded interoperability, enhanced user experiences and the breadth to support the concept of universal access for any device, from smartphones to telepresence systems, said Goyal.
One of the widely used protocols, SIP helps in establishing real-time communication sessions like voice and video calls – over IP networks. According to industry experts, the flexibility and interoperability of SIP has established the protocol as the current standard for communications systems. However, lack of support for advanced video features has prevented widespread SIP Video deployments.
IMTC officials said that the newly authored SIP Video profile extends supported features beyond just establishment of basic video calls. In addition, it also enables rich multimedia experiences by defining interoperability profiles for security and encryption, dual video streams, bandwidth flow control and intra frame request.
The expanded definition extends functionality and interoperability for video communications beyond the traditional H.323 video islands, said IMTC officials.
Anshu Shrivastava is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anshu’s articles, please visit her columnist page.