SIP and VoIP Essay
The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) emerged as an alternative to conventional telephone communication. The new technology was based on the use of the internet protocol to maintain voice communication between users. However, VoIP has proved to be vulnerable to numerous risks and threats associated with the high risk of intrusion and information loss or exposure of the communication to the access of the third parties. This is why the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology has emerged to enhance the protection of online communication using voice communication between users via internet protocol. Therefore, SIP and VoIP are similar technologies that have similar goals but SIP is a relatively new approach to address security issues that VoIP has proved to be vulnerable to. In this regard, SIP is more effective in terms of data protection and secure communication via the internet due to securing the communication at the beginning of the communication by admitting authorized users only.
Both SIP and VoIP have their advantages and drawbacks but neither technology dominates at the moment, although both of them are quite popular and widely spread. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that VoIP is used wider compared to SIP but this is not because of some considerable advantages of VoIP over SIP but because of the long presence in the market and habits of users. Nevertheless, when the security is at stake, many users prefer SIP to the traditional VoIP.
One of the main advantages of VoIP is the effective voice communication over the internet protocol and a variety of ways voice communication can be maintained between users. In actuality, users may use not only different ways of voice communication such as direct communication or voice messaging but they may also use various applications that use VoIP as their integral part to offer users the possibility of direct or indirect voice communication online. The use of technology can contribute to fast and effective voice communication, regardless of the physical distance between people. This is why the major advantage of VoIP is its availability and effectiveness in terms of speed, quality, and boundaries of communication. The latter means that VoIP opens much wider opportunities for communication compared to conventional telephone communication because VoIP is available, wherever a stable internet connection is available.
On the other hand, the major drawback of VoIP is the lack of information security. VoIP has proved to be vulnerable to external attacks and interference in the functioning of the information system that maintains the communication. As a result, users suffered from the interference of the third parties and the revelation of their communication to the third parties without their authorization. Moreover, VoIP also makes users vulnerable to external attacks and the protection level is not enough to confront emerging threats to the privacy and information security of users. This is why many users have started to consider other options of communication and other technologies to be used than VoIP to secure their communication, including voice communication.
In this regard, SIP has emerged as a more secure technology and security was and still remains the major advantage of SIP compared to VoIP. To put it more precisely, researchers (Zhang, et al., 2010) insist that SIP offers a higher level of data protection and information security compared to VoIP. When SIP is applied, users are more secure, while the risk of attacks decreases substantially compared to the use of conventional VoIP (Zhang, et al., 2010). At this point, it is worth mentioning the fact that, in contrast to VoIP, SIP defines and controls the messages that are sent between endpoints, which govern establishment, termination, and other essential elements of the call. This means that the call may be terminated at any moment if the system detects any suspicious activities and external threats. VoIP cannot provide such a high level of protection because it relies heavily on an open internet environment and, what is more important, it relies heavily on external internet-based infrastructure (Zhang, et al., 2010. Therefore, VoIP becomes more vulnerable to external attacks and information breaches and also VoIP is dependent on external internet resources that provide the essential infrastructure.
At the same time, SIP also has certain drawbacks. First, SIP requires a higher load on the gateway compared to VoIP. This means that the amount of data that has to be processed increases and so may increase the time spent on the information processing. In case of a slow internet connection, SIP communication may face considerable challenges. Also, SIP is a relatively new protocol, and not so many people know and can use it as effectively as users are accustomed to doing with VoIP. In other words, SIP may be difficult to use for inexperienced users and it still has to gain the user’s attention and approval. Moreover, some features of SIP are still being developed that make it less attractive and comfortable to use compared to VoIP, which users are accustomed to using on the regular basis and which has well-developed features.
Thus, SIP and VoIP are quite popular but VoIP still holds the lead in the market, but its vulnerability to external attacks and information breaches makes SIP more attractive for users due to its higher information security and better security technology being used.
References:
Internet Telephony Africa’s Brave New Future.
Zhang, G. et al. (2010). Blocking attacks on SIP VoIP proxies caused by external processing, Telecommun Syst, 45: 61–76.
