SIP Softswitch: What is it?

To understand exactly what a SIP Softswitch does it is important to understand the background of the device. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is an innovated technology that lets telephone system function over the Internet. Calls made through the use of an SIP softswitch device travel across the virtual landscape of networks and servers instead of restricting it to only travel through traditional phone lines. Being able to traverse the World Wide Web is what enables ordinary telephones to make VoIP calls. It also serves to reduce the calling fees of regular phone line calls, especially international calls. 

 

So how does a phone call go from phone lines to the Internet? An SIP softswitch is a device that handles the transformation between traditional phone calls to virtual data capable of traveling over the World Wide Web. It not only captures and control phone signals, but imbues them with specific properties so that they are recognized by the servers and devices they are trying to reach. A regular phone number, or PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) number, can connect to a system that enables SIP. The VoIP hosted softswitch in the system will then convert the signal form the phone number into an IP signal that can be read and understood by any SIP telephone system. The process is reverse when a SIP system makes a call to a regular phone number.

 

 

 

• Asterisk
• FreeSWITCH
• Kamailo
• OpenSER
• SailFin
• SIP Express Router (SER)

 

 

• 3Com VCX telephony module
• Aastra 5000, 800, MX-ONE
• Aricent SIP UA stack
• Nortel SIP multimedia Communication Server 5200
• Oracle Mulimedia Communication Engine (M2CE)
• Revation LinkLive SIP Unified Communications Server
• Sun Microsystems Sun GlassFish Communication Server