3G Americas
Recommends the SIP-I Session Control Protocol
3G Americas, an organization representing the GSM family of
technologies in the Americas, today provides a white paper
entitled
"Why SIP-I? A Switching Core Protocol Recommendation for
GSM/UMTS Operators." 3G Americas recommends to the wireless
industry, and GSM/UMTS/LTE operators in particular, the adoption
of a single session control protocol which will support the
creation, modification and termination of packetized voice
sessions in an existing GSM/UMTS or future LTE network.
Session control refers to the process used to create, modify,
and terminate IP-based communication sessions of various
methods, including two-way voice communication, multimedia
(text, audio, or video) conference collaboration, instant
messaging, application sharing, and other contemplated but not
yet fully specified services. It is accomplished through
signaling between various network elements and endpoints using a
session control protocol.
The most widely known session control protocol is Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP), but SIP has a major limitation that
is of great importance to any GSM/UMTS operator. It does not
provide any method of directly inter-working with the PSTN
because it was not created with the intention of it being fully
backward compatible with legacy PSTN signaling mechanisms.
The recommendation of the white paper is based on analysis and
comparison of three session control protocols that can
inter-work with the PSTN: BICC, SIP-I and SIP-T. BICC is the
current protocol standardized in the 3GPP Release 4 architecture
and deployed in some networks today. However, BICC is not an
optimal choice for ongoing evolution because it has been limited
to, and is predicted to remain limited to, operation within a
GSM/UMTS context. BICC does not address domains beyond GSM/UMTS
such as LTE; as a result, it does not automatically offer the
future level of flexibility of continued development and
evolution that would accompany the SIP with ISUP encapsulation
variants (i.e. either SIP-T or SIP-I).
The paper presents a detailed
technical analysis of capabilities existing within the two SIP
technologies with ISUP encapsulation variants, and provides the
recommended direction for evolution: SIP-I. There are four areas
where SIP-I is better suited for a GSM/UMTS environment than
SIP-T:
- Assumptions regarding the
trust and security environment.
- Encapsulation procedures &
message mapping.
- Support of RFCs.
- User plane interoperability.
Chris Pearson, President of 3G
Americas, commented, "In the current transformation of voice
communications networks from circuit switched to packet based
systems, SIP-I is clearly the best way forward to support and
enable new capabilities of the network.”
3G Americas recommends that all GSM/UMTS network operators put
SIP-I on their network evolution roadmap as the session control
protocol, and, as operational requirements and service delivery
requirements emerge, and evolve to SIP-I technology over time.
The white paper,
Why SIP-I? A Switching Core Protocol Recommendation for GSM/UMTS
Operators is available for free download on the 3G Americas
website, www.3gamericas.org.
Glossary
BICC: Bearer Independent
Call Control (BICC)
ISDN: Integrated Services
Digital Network
ISUP: ISDN User Part
PSTN: Public Switched
Telephone Network
SIP: Session Initiation
Protocol
SIP-I: Session Initiation
Protocol with encapsulated ISUP
SIP-T: Session Initiation
Protocol for Telephones
About 3G Americas: Unifying
the Americas through Wireless Technology
The mission of 3G Americas is to promote and facilitate the
seamless deployment throughout the Americas of GSM and its
evolution to 3G and beyond. The organization fully supports the
Third Generation (3G) technology migration strategy to EDGE and
UMTS/HSPA adopted by many operators in the Americas. The GSM
family of technologies accounts for 85% of wireless mobile
customers worldwide. 3G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue,
WA with an office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Dallas,
TX. For more information, visit our website at
www.3gamericas.org.
Contact:
Vicki Livingston
+1 262 242 3458
vicki.livingston@3gamericas.org
www.3gamericas.org Bellevue, WA, August 29, 2007
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