N-GEN Communications Web-based Seminars ©NGCS

Seminar - An Overview of Communications Technologies

Module 1 - An Overview of the Communications Industry                                                              Slide 18 of 26  _________________                                                                                  __________

                                 Multi-Media Convergent Technologies

                                        H.323

                                        Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

                                        Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP)

                                       Megaco / H.248

_________________                                                                                  __________

The convergent architectures have evolved to handle multi-media traffic over the Internet protocol. Each architecture is an umbrella standard including signaling, call control, voice and video compression. The telephone and cable companies are also implementing these protocols into their networks to handle multi-media traffic.

H.323 is a worldwide standard for audio, video and data communications via the Internet protocol. H.323 is a suite of protocols that include video encoding, voice encoding, terminal control and management, routing and link protocols. H.323 is an ITU recommendation and competes with SIP, MGCP and Megaco protocols. H.323 is championed by the computer and communications equipment industry.

SIP is a signaling protocol for setting up sessions between clients over a network for multi-media applications. SIP is a text based protocol. It is an open standard developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force and is a direct competitor of H.323.

MGCP is developed by the telecommunications community to address Voice over IP. This standard is defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and is a competitor to H.323 and SIP. This standard is superceded by Megaco protocol.

Megaco is an official standard providing an open standard for the IP-based gateway device control using master / slave principle. This standard is developed jointly by the IETF and the ITU standard bodies. Megaco (IETF) and H.248 (ITU) are two names for the same protocol.