IP Communications Featured Articles

The SIP Forum (News - Alert), an industry association with members from top IP communications companies which aims to advance SIP-based product and service adoption and interoperability, recently formed the SIP over IPv6 Task Group. Its key function is to address key deployment and interoperability issues as the telecommunications industry begins its migration to SIP over IPv6.

Already, the new task group has developed and ratified a charter with the mandate to identify SIP over IPv6 issues, assessing the impact of transition technologies and dual stack devices on existing SIP networks. The group is to enlist key stakeholders from the service provider, application developer and equipment communities with co-chairs John Berg of CableLabs (News - Alert) and Andrew Hutton of Siemens Enterprise Communications to lead it.

Specific points of interest for the group include: evaluating the current status of SIP over IPv6 based on IETF and other industry standardization; assessing current technologies for IPv4/IPv6 co-existence and identifying their impact; and providing direction and technical leadership in resolving problems related to SIP when using IPv6 or hybrid IPv4/IPv6 technologies, just to name a few.

The ultimate goal of the group's current process is to develop technical recommendations and remedy deficiencies.

“The SIP Over IPv6 Task Group will play an important role in identifying the challenges facing the telecommunications industry in migrating to SIP over IPv6,” said SIP Forum managing director and president Marc Robins. “This is a complex transition, involving issues critical to the foundation of the future Internet. This new task group is charged with developing the strategy and best course of action to guide the IP communications industry toward the smoothest transition to IPv6.”

Internet Protocol version 6 is the next generation Internet Protocol which will ultimately replace IPv4, while improving upon it with improved security and more support for real-time communications.

Recently, the SIP Forum introduced a new SIP trunking interoperability testing initiative called SIPconnect-IT 2012, which aims to drive industry-wide adoption of the SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Specification. The event is set to take place from December 3-7 at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory.

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