Talk:Session Initiation Protocol/Archive 1

Not a web directory
This article has been bothering me for a long time - I've decided to remove the entire Software section from the article, since it has become a web directory of sorts. I'm sure some of the links I removed belong in the article (and some indeed do appear in the text), but I doubt there would be more than a handful. If someone wants to add a link back in, they should be required to prove that it belongs in this encyclopedia, otherwise they should be directed to dmoz.org. Is this OK with everyone? Mindmatrix 01:33, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The removed section is in my opinion is not a mere collection of external links.  In my opinion the section that was removed is an valuable portion of this article and should remain.  While I would admit the list is long and inclusive it and other sections like it are one of the reasons I use wikipedia instead of dmoz.org (when is the last time anybody searched dmoz.org?).  Wikipedia can include freeform text and lists to related information, it is open in contrast to dmoz.org which is closed.  Wikipedia is not the Encyclopedia Brittanica and I use it more often than either EB or dmoz.org because it can and does include links and subsections that provide lists that can point to actual organizations (or external document links).  If a short list can be justified, I see no reason an inclusive list of companies and organizations that develop sip software should not.  The router article includes a list of router companies and is better off for it.  Should we start shortening that list as well? Thane Eichenauer 04:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

SIP and H.323
The opening paragraph of the article states that SIP is now "the leading protocol" for VOIP and is "replacing" H.323. My understanding is that this is not the case – that H.323 remains more commonly used than SIP. No source is cited for the assertion. The SIP vs. H.323 story seems to have long been surrounded by substantial FUD/hype, so it seems important to get the facts straight. A bit of balance seems called for (see, e.g., for an alternative point of view). In fact, even some SIP promoters appear to acknowledge that H.323 remains dominant (see, which, after bad-mouthing H.323 mercilessly, says "The majority of existing IP telephony products rely on the H.323 suite"). Is there a reliable source to validate the statement, or should it just be removed? –Mulligatawny 04:50, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I suggest creating a new wikipedia entry comparing the two protocols H.323 and SIP, and moving the second half of section "Protocol design" into it. It could make sense also for discusing convergence there. 07 Feb 07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.184.75.134 (talk) 12:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Bandwidth
Could someone who knows about SIP please add some bits about bandwidth usage? Thanks. David Johnson [ T|C ] 14:30, 25 Jan 2006 (UTC)

A1. I feel it's important to distinguish between SIP (the signaling protocol), and RTP (widely used as the "data" protocol). A typical SIP "phone call" would generate around 8-10 SIP packets. If we assume the size of these packets to be typically less than 1200 size, and generally around 200 bytes in size. Per "phone call", we are talking around 10*200bytes = 2kb. Look at contents of all SIP messages exchanged during a typical phone call scenario (EG). Regarding RTP, it depends on the underlying codec that is used. GSM (13kbit/s), G.711 (64kbit/s) and Speex (2kbit/s - 44kbit/s) are common codecs used with SIP/RTP. Moogman 03:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget all the protocol overheads of packetising all the data produced by the codec in question. For example, with G.711 (Mu-law and A-law), 64kbit/s is the raw data rate of the voice traffic. After packetisation with RTP and also any SIP signalling that may be present, a G.711 call over SIP uses approximately 85kbit/s in each direction of a call. JonTeh 01:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

SIP-T and SIP-I
SIP-T is no extension to SIP, but practises for interfacing SIP to the PSTN. SIP-I (SIP ISUP mapping) is from ITU (Q.1912.5) which specifies recommendations for interworking of ISUP/BICC and SIP-T. SIGTRAN has an own article, so the chapter extensions is not needed. --Kgfleischmann (talk) 08:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I renamed the chapter "extensions" to "SIP-ISUP" interworking, as that is what SIP-I and SIP-T are good for. The SIP sided duties to make that interworking work are a scattered over different RFCs, some written for interworking, others having a more general purpose (Examples are the PRACK and UPDATE primitives, the "early ringing" feature). The chapter should be extended. SIP-T and some BICC-applications (the ISUP side of the thing) should be mentioned. --Kgfleischmann (talk) 04:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

SIP in OSI app or pres layer?
Hi. This is a 'passer by' with (still) little experience adding to Wikipedia, so please forgive any protocol mis-steps here, but this is a simple thing... I notice that this article says SIP is in the application layer of the IP model and the presentation layer of the OSI model. But if you look at the wikipedia entry for the OSI model, it shows SIP in the application layer there, too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrTLesterThomas (talk • contribs) 16:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

As I read further, I may have missed two important points: (1) quoting from the wikipedia OSI entry:  "Not understanding that the pure seven-layer model is more historic than current, many beginners make the mistake of trying to fit every protocol they study into one of the seven basic layers." (2) quoting from the wikpedia "Internet protocol suite" entry: "The IETF has repeatedly stated that Internet protocol and architecture development is not intended to be OSI-compliant."... (hmm, not sure how to properly 'sign' these entries.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrTLesterThomas (talk • contribs) 16:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah... learned how to properly sign; let's see if it works: DrTLesterThomas (talk) 17:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Imho it is a bad idea to press SIP into the OSI model, it never was designed for. SIP is an application, therefore it is an app. layer protocol. As TCP/IP does not know the OSI-session-layer, SIP itself is in charge to define functions decribed there, if it needs them. The term session, as used in SIP, has nothing to do with the term session in the OSI model. --Kgfleischmann (talk) 03:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * SIP is also placed at the session layer in the Session (computer science) article, and in the Session Layer article. Please clarify and contribute to these. Mange01 (talk) 10:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

External links cleanup
This article is attracting many links that do not meet WP:EL guidelines. Particularly, links to commercial websites, FAQs, Forums, etc. WP is also not a directory of links WP:NOT and by simply reorganizing the External Links section into categories does not satisfy this guideline. Replaced most links with dmoz (WP recommendation) and request link additions that meet WP guidelines be discussed and agreed upon here in the talk page first. If there are any Standards websites or other Official links that have been removed, please comment here and add them back. Thanks for helping to keep this article free of spam. Calltech 13:18, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The Entire list of SIP related specs organized by IETF WG

I would like to add informative content in the form of a white paper on "SIP Protocol Overview" as an external link to the Wikipedia page "Session Initiation Protocol". The URL of the white paper is

http://www.radvision.com/NR/rdonlyres/51855E82-BD7C-4D9D-AA8A-E822E3F4A81F/0/RADVISIONSIPProtocolOverview.pdf

Please advise if this would be agreeable to the editor. 05:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)AIMSzpc

AIMSzpc 14:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Just begin editing, there will be people who correct if necessary --Kgfleischmann 15:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggesting an article about SIP and NAT: http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_7295.html Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggest adding the IETF SIP Working Group page as an external link: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/sip/ Jc3 (talk) 18:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

SIP and lawful interception
It is bogus that SIP can't handle lawful interception. You can intercept SIP traffic on an IP-line and also you can use a SIP-server to initiate a lawful intercept of the call-related data that passes the SIP-server and even the media that passes a media gateway under the control of that operator or even the entire IP-traffic on a specific line as long as it is under the control of the Telco. Raindeer (talk) 13:21, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Raindeer is correct, but it should be clarified. SIP traffic may be intercepted on the application level so long as the media and SIP traffic is proxied by a provider.  Otherwise, the destination entity acts as the SIP server, preventing it being used as an interceptor.  Traffic may be intercepted on the IP level through the ISP, or any hop between the two parties, but this information may be rendered useless easily be communicating over a secured socket connection. -Verdatum (talk) 15:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Compatibilities?
It's not clear from anything in the article whether different SIP-driven VOIP networks routinely connect to each other. I have insufficient knowledge. Could anyone add this information? Centrepull (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Technically SIP driven VOIP networks should interact. What happens to a caller is a question of the security policy of the providers and their roaming agreements. The latter are not described as part of the standard(s) nor the possible technical szenarios behind them. --Kgfleischmann (talk) 14:59, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

SIP security
SIP security is a challenge for networking due to it's nature "Easy to understand". Application layer messages involve all below layers and therefore security from all levels become part of this top layer protocol. Research is continue in this field and there are some tools available such as PROTOS for fuzzing and verifying SIP implementations. Some application layer firewalls (SonicWALL) are also capable to protect SIP attacks and SIPT (Spam over Internet Telephony).Gaurav.raval (talk) 10:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Protocol design
From the article: "A goal for SIP was to provide a superset of the call processing functions and features present in the public switched telephone network (PSTN)." Is there any evidence for this? All I can find is a quote that seems to contradict this : "draft-ietf-sip-guidelines-09]"Alf Boggis (talk) 13:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also from the article: "SIP acts as a carrier for the Session Description Protocol (SDP), which describes the media content of the session, e.g. what IP ports to use" I wonder at "IP ports"...I thought IP does not have ports, but IP addresses? Matthi2 14:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
 * You are right, UDP, TCP ports were the right thing! --Kgfleischmann 17:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Also from the article: "SIP-enabled telephony networks can also implement many of the more advanced call processing features present in Signalling System 7 (SS7), though the two protocols themselves are very different. SS7 is a centralized protocol, characterized by a complex central network architecture and dumb endpoints (traditional telephone handsets)." I do not claim to be an expert in PSTN but to my knowledge, telephone handsets do NOT talk SS7. It is the service switching point (SSP) nodes of the network that are nearest to end user that talk SS7 with other signaling entities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.26.248 (talk) 10:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well having worked in the Telecommunications industry for the last 20 years in engineering capacities and having seen the development of VoIP protocols, (SIP being one of them), and having commissioned both legacy and IP based voice netowrks I can categorically state that the assertion that SIP, (or any other VoIP), based networks are "simple" network architectures is wrong. With SS7 you had single switches at each node which had integrated signalling capabilities right across the network up to the local exchange. The final leg between LE and handset using a completely different signalling principle but one that is again integrated in to the local switches. The most complicated SS7 ever became was to impliment a seperate "signalling" topology on top of "voice" network which required signalling switches, (known as Signalling Transfer Points ie STPs). This was done predominantly for redundancy purposes and wasn't actually necessary in order to implement SS7. In fact the vast majority of SS7 switches had STP functionality inherently, (only small switch vendors products didn't). VoIP on the other hand is predominantly characterised by mulitple boxes, (Media Gateways, Servers, Controlers etc) which all have to intercommunicate across both their own "internal" networks as well as the infrastructure network as a whole in order to work properly. Simplicity is NOT a feature of VoIP networks as they mark a move to what is called distibuted computing in other industries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.124.228 (talk) 10:37, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

SIP Implementation by Broadcast Audio Codec Manufacturers
There is not much discussion on the page about how broadcast audio codec manufacturers have implemented SIP, according to EBU N/ACIP Tech 3326 specifications, in order to allow different brands to connect to each other. SIP is used to ensure that a common protocol is used by manufacturers so that interoperability is maximised. It also makes connections between IP audio codecs more simple when traversing firewalls and when Network Address Translation is required. You can read more about how these broadcast codecs work by clicking on the following link *Tieline Technology IP Audio Protocols for Broadcasting Audio over IP (EBU N/ACIP Tech 3326) and there is also a website for the Audio-via-IP Experts group that talks about interoperability of IP audio codecs using SIP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Glenndavies (talk • contribs) 03:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * This has very little to do with SIP per se. SIP uses SDP to negotiate codecs and these are no different than any other codec. Why would the implementation of SIP by such vendors be any different? Nothing special in SIP is required to use whatever codec. Different brands to connect to each other, what are you asking? Kbrose (talk) 03:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I have added a mention to the Applications section. --Kvng (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Merge SIP registrar into Session Initiation Protocol
SIP registrar is a very short article. It would better if it was a section directly on Session Initiation Protocol article. --I don&#39;t remember my username (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC).
 * A merge from SIP connection has also been proposed. I support both proposals. No need to wait for permission on these sorts of things. Be WP:BOLD. --Kvng (talk) 04:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

SIP registrar is using the sip protocol, but it comes a lot of information in that. It should not be merged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jiffingeorge (talk • contribs) 08:50, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Leave them separate. Usually you only want some info about what a SIP registrar without having to read all the kruft in the main article. 71.131.2.48 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC).


 * Merge we need not have articles for each topic about a single protocol, SIP Register as section in SIP will sufficeUser talk:R.srinivaas 06:21, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Merging it is better. Sae1962 (talk) 10:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've merged SIP registrar; It was straightforward. A SIP connection merge looks to be a bit more complicated. Some of the content might be better placed in VoIP. --Kvng (talk) 17:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Advertising Link
The external link "Some examples of SIP Use Cases" looks like advertising to me, and not very informative about SIP. Cmcqueen1975 (talk) 01:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes! + The link is about products and not about the protocol --Kgfleischmann (talk) 11:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Merge SIP URI sips URI scheme into Session Initiation Protocol
From my standpoint the URI structure of SIP, while a low level element of the protocol, is not robust enough in it's own right to require an independent section, let alone a whole page. The current suggested merge location #NetworkElements also makes good sense when you consider the overall structure of the article. I approve this merge. Jeremiah.tidmore (talk) 16:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree due to limited scope of sips URI scheme (corrected heading above) which will never make a substantial article Widefox (talk) 10:14, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

✅ --Kvng (talk) 18:41, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Too technical
This article needs a laymen's introduction before all these specifics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.64.191.59 (talk) 23:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. A technical banner alerting readers and editors to this has been in place for a few months now. --Kvng (talk) 18:43, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What's the legal status of the SIP protocol?
I was about to fix a link in the text of Wengo which was trying to point to a page about 'Free Standards'. But then I noticed that the SIP page doesn't actually say if it's free/open or whatever. If someone can clear this up and add clarification to this SIP page that would be great. --DuLithgow (talk) 07:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The protocol is covered by the IETF copyright which appears at the end of the RFC(s). It's basically an open-source type of license. --Kvng (talk) 15:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I believed every RFC made public by IETF are open, not that they are GNU, rather open. Anyone can use those standards to implement their own product without giving any royalty to IETF of whomsoever. Mvineetmenon (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

SIP and RTP
Are we sure SIP uses RTP as transport protocol?

A1: SIP uses roughly 3-5 Kilobytes per second of bandwidth, this can vary depending on the codec being used, and be as high as 15 Kilobytes per second synchronously.x

A2: No, SIP does not use RTP for transport. SIP itself is transported over either TCP or UDP. UDP is more common.

SIP is associated with RTP: a SIP session describes (typically one) RTP session. When the SIP handshake is complete, the RTP session can be set up. (This is somewhat simplified). The comment above (A1) on bandwidth should refer to RTP, not to SIP. SIP bandwidth does not vary with the codec, since media is never transported with SIP. BTW, the current version of the article is correct with respect to SIP/RTP, but maybe it can be clarified. Yaron 11:58, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Here's a shot-- worth reviewing before incorporating: "In typical use, SIP "sessions" are simply packet streams of the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP). RTP is the carrier for the actual voice or video content itself." might be better said "In typical use, two endpoints use SIP to establish a dialog or session by exchanging SDPs. These SDPs tend to describe Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) packet streams.  RTP is the carrier..." Rhys 17 Aug 2005.

A3: SIP doesn't mandate any sort of trnasport media. It's just that UDP is the popular transport media becuase of it's less overhead than TCP. But now a days TCP is gaining populatiry as a transport for SIP(more so after SIPS). RTP on the other hand is the transport for media. When RTP transport starts, SIP messages are no longer needed, since signalling has been completed. Mvineetmenon (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Opinionated introduction
Maybe I'm in the minority, but the introduction seems pretty speculative and opinionated. While it may or may not be true that everything will converge to one network, there is no indication SIP will be the protocol used. It is well written, however.


 * One attempt to enable fixed/mobile convergence is the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which uses SIP. Codecatster 11:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Another one being the 3GPP which has chosen SIP as their signalling protocol. Mvineetmenon (talk) 10:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the introduction might be opinionated, but one thing is for sure, SIP is the actual protocol used in the majority of scenarios involving voice transport over IP. About the convergence mmm... who knows? 81.114.228.2 16:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC) The Supernatural Protocols Anaesthetist

SIP address lives
has brought SIP address back into existence by moving Sips URI scheme. I had previous merged SIP address into this article (see discussion above). There's a bit more to this new article so I'm not going to jump and merge it. I am interested to know what's the WP:COMMONNAME for a SIP address. Is it SIP address or SIP URI. I've heard both with the latter being more common but I work with geeky implementers not end-users. ~KvnG 15:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I get 103000 ghits for "SIP address" and 170000 for "SIP URI" so likely both are valid. The previously-merged text was 1101 bytes (vs. 6019 bytes currently at SIP address) and was about just sips: (not sip: addressing in general) so isn't the same article. The question of how a SIP user on one provider directly contacts a SIP user somewhere else without gating the call to PSTN and back is itself a fairly broad topic and the subject of multiple articles. A published SIP address could make this process as 'free' as e-mail or (conversely) as spam-laden and broken as e-mail. K7L (talk) 15:43, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

SIP handler (URL protocol)
Does anyone knows how to make a clickable sip link ( sip://1231231234 ) to dial the number in the softphone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.52.177.110 (talk) 21:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you would make a link with "sip:user@example.com" as the URL, similar to how you link to mail addresses with "mailto:user@example.com". The browser you view the page in, must of course know what to do with a sip (or mailto) link, i.e., what program to start. You are talking about numbers, so perhaps you are referring to ordinary phone numbers. I don't know really how you would link to those. —Bromskloss (talk) 15:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To link to just an e.164 telephone number, without specifying server or gateway? tel:+1-867-867-5309 works on a few mobile devices. K7L (talk) 15:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Ode to SIP
''In terms of telephony applications, SIP is not without limitations. The main criticisms of SIP involve limitations surrounding emergency calling and law enforcement interception activities. The peer to peer architecture of the SIP protocol uses IP endpoints that, by their nature, are unrestricted in terms of mobility. Unlike regular PSTN 911 calls, with SIP, there is no network layer location mechanism available to pinpoint the location of the user. It is also extremely difficult for law enforcement to monitor and intercept SIP based phone calls due to the same reason. Despite these limitations, SIP is growing in popularity due to its ease of deployment and management, low cost, and scalable capability.''

In love, 178.197.236.111 (talk) 04:00, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Bad Grammar
Another solution is ICE. It combine STUN and TURN protocols. STUN is almost resources-less solutions, but it does not work in some cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.167.214.129 (talk) 04:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The IETF Network Working Group published RFC 3261 - as of 2013 the latest version of the specification - in June 2002.[3] -- this sentence is a bit wonky. Should be reworded to -- As of 2013, the latest version of the specification is RFC 3261, published in June 2002.

✅ ~KvnG 23:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Orphaned talk page
Looks like SIP connection was moved to Session Initiation Protocol, but the talk page wasn't moved (and is still there). —danhash (talk) 00:34, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Session Initiation Protocol. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140330061038/http://portal.etsi.org/ptcc/downloads/TTCN3SIPOSP.pdf to http://portal.etsi.org/ptcc/downloads/TTCN3SIPOSP.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 16:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to add chapter about SIP performance testing
Hello, I'd like to share my experience and write about SIP performance testing  can I do it in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asv128 (talk • contribs) 12:04, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Edit warring
User:Kbrose and User:Octopenslayer, you've both been edit warring back and forth. Please bring your issues here and discuss this civilly.

IMO, you are both right and both wrong. User:Kbrose, I feel you are correct when you say in your edit summary that some of User:Octopenslayer's changes introduce some specific errors. However, I disagree that there is "no improvement". It's both an improvement and important to clarify that SIP by itself only solves the problem of reaching another endpoint, and that there's no hard requirement for SIP to be used with SDP and RTP (even though it almost always is). Having that stated clearly is important e.g. for comparing with H.323.

If there are technical problems with User:Octopenslayer's changes, then fix or revert only those problems. Do not wholesale revert large changes just because of a few problems. If there are large changes you continue to object to, discuss them here before editing the page further; short uninformative edit summaries are not the right way to handle that. --Bigpeteb (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Bigpeteb, thank you for your intervention. The wholesale deletion of everything I had done with initially no justification was frustrating. In fact, User:Kbrose has now only mentioned one specific thing he thought was an error: that SIP is a session-layer protocol.  It certainly is a session-layer protocol in the OSI 7-layer reference model.  It is correct to say that it is not a session layer protocol if you are referring to the DoD 4-layer Internet model, where there is no session layer.  This can be addressed by mentioning both.


 * If User:Kbrose has specific other words he disagrees with, then by all means, let's discuss them here. Deleting all of the work I did based on that one item is inappropriate and not constructive.


 * It is also a red herring. My main motivation for editing the article was to bring it up to date technically.  The article mentioned "Internet telephony" a lot, relying on a book from 2004.  That is an old idea.  There are very few native "internet telephony" service providers today.  Skype is the biggest one that comes to mind, and they are not standards-based, and do not use SIP. Vonage is partial-internet, but one side is POTS, not IP and it is unknown if they even use SIP.  Since 2004, things have evolved.  Today, in 2017, the vast, vast majority of application of SIP is in carrier networks and carrier services.  All carriers have converted their backbones to IP and use SIP for call establishment within the IP part of their networks.  The latest carrier service is "SIP Trunking", which is native communication of IP packets with SIP messages and RTP VoIP in them.  Neither of these have anything to do with the Internet.


 * It is important to differentiate between IP-based telecom over carrier networks and the Internet. They are not the same thing.  This was not reflected in the article.  That was the main reason I stepped up to the plate.


 * It is also important to remember that no-one owns an article in Wikipedia. I see that user User:Kbrose has been involved with this article for a long time - but that is no justification for summarily deleting other people's work in bringing the article up to date.


 * Thank you--Octopenslayer (talk) 23:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, to be clear... SIP being an application layer protocol rather than a session layer protocol is one of the things I think User:Kbrose is right about. For one, it says so right in the first sentence of RFC 3261. Also, looking at the list of protocols on session layer, I don't think SIP is comparable to PPTP or NetBIOS. Even if it is when establishing sessions using the INVITE method, SIP has other methods like MESSAGE and NOTIFY that are not session-oriented. So maybe it's not obvious, and we need to discuss further, or maybe just say in the article that it spans aspects of both layers. (I never liked the 7-layer model anyway, specifically because the "session" and "presentation" layers are ambiguous, and because their functionality is usually included in either a lower- or higher-level protocol, whereas the other 4 or 5 layers are fairly distinct and almost always independent.)


 * Bigpeteb, you're a breath of fresh air, rationally discussing issues. I agree that SIP has other functions that are not session-oriented, so saying that it spans aspects of both OSI application and session layers would be correct.


 * For our collective information, I went to the source (http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/s020269_ISO_IEC_7498-1_1994(E).zip) : ISOIIEC 7498-1: 1994 and reviewed what they define as the OSI session layer: "7.3.2.1   The purpose of the Session Layer is to provide the means necessary for cooperating presentation-entities to organize and to synchronize their dialogue and to manage their data exchange. To do this, the Session Layer provides services  to  establish  a  session-connection  between  two  presentation-entities,  to  support  orderly  data  exchange interactions, and to release the connection in an orderly manner." and "7.3.3.1.1 In connection-mode, the services provided by the Session Layer are described below: a) 	session-connection establishment; b)	session-connection release; c) 	normal data transfer; d) 	expedited data transfer; e) 	token management; f) 	session-connection synchronization; g) 	exception reporting; h) 	activity management; j) 	typed data transfer; and k)	resynchronization.".  The functions provided by SIP surely are a superset of this definition.  (As an aside, I have problems with the 4-layer Internet model, it seems dated talking about the "Internet Layer" instead of the network layer, and basically calling everything an application layer protocol.  How is BGP an application layer protocol and not a network layer?  But I digress.) -- Octopenslayer (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I also want to object to the claim that "all carriers have converted their backbones to IP and use SIP", because that doesn't sound like it reflects WP:WORLDVIEW. Unless you have a source, a hyperbolic claim that every carrier in the whole world has converted their backbones to SIP needs to be removed. Even if you want to restrict it to "all carriers in the U.S." or the UK, it still needs a citation to verify that fact.


 * I agree it is an unsubstantiated hyperbolic claim and should be qualified. It will be hard to find a published reference regarding internal use of SIP by carriers like AT&T, Bell Canada and Deutsche Telekom, since a) in general, the carriers consider such information as proprietary and do not release it to the public, and b) it's my experience that people who write magazine and newspaper articles on current-state-of-the-telecom-network subjects like this generally do not know what they are talking about.  The statement is based on my personally-acquired knowledge, as my day job is providing systems engineering level consulting to the aforementioned.  I will try to find a reference to back up the statement.


 * In the meantime it would certainly be reasonable to change the wording from "all carriers" to the less hyperbolic "carriers". -- Octopenslayer (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * In general, though, I applaud your efforts. I'll try to make time to contribute some of my own knowledge to this article (since my day job is working with SIP). --Bigpeteb (talk) 15:26, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * In my experience, no one ever wins these arguments about network layers. Whether a certain protocol lives on a certain layer is often of little useful value to readers and results in a lot of wheel spinning by editors. Removing controversial and uncited detail around these topics is probably the best approach. ~Kvng (talk) 19:46, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Assured Services Session Initiation Protocol
Assured Services Session Initiation Protocol redirects here, but the article makes no direct mention of it. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pierce-ieprep-assured-service-arch-02 John a s (talk) 15:00, 8 November 2018 (UTC)