What is Session Description Protocol (SDP)

Session Description Protocol (SDP) and SIP

12:14 05 September 2017

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) signaling protocol that initiates and manages interactive user sessions involving voice, video, and instant messaging, among others. It is one of the major signaling protocols use in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), enabling VoIP applications (such as Skype) to offer the same kind of high quality and reliability one can expect from traditional telephone systems.

 

SIP, which is based on Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), was developed to meet the growing demand for video conferencing, unified messaging, and voice chatting, which are now being implemented through Internet. Essentially, it deals with embedding call setup and signaling features in networking elements including proxy servers and users agents.

 

SIP handles the signaling part of a communication session and serves as a carrier for the Session Description Protocol (SDP). While SDP handles the media portion of the session, the transmission of voice and video content are done by the Real-time Transport Protocol.

 

SIP is easy to program, scalable, easy to implement, and requires less time to set up. It holds a lot of promise in today and tomorrow’s communication world.