Session Initiation Protocol

What Does Session Initiation Protocol Mean?

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a text-based signaling protocol that establishes Internet Protocol (IP) network sessions at the application layer. Signaling protocols are used for signaling encapsulation identification.

SIP was designed in 1996 and approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). RFC 3261 is the most current version.

Techopedia Explains Session Initiation Protocol

SIP is used in applications ranging from Unicast Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls to multistream or multimedia conferencing. SIP runs on User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) or Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).

SIP was accepted as a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) signaling protocol in November 2000 and became a permanent component of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which is a mobile (cellular) multimedia streaming framework.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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