VoIP Versus SIP, What is the Difference?
SIP is also often made to make VoIP calls, but that doesn"t mean that SIP is the same as VoIP. SIP is more of a protocol to establish communication channels, and VoIP is just one of the applications it can be used with. The SIP protocol is growing rapidly in popularity and right now it"s main application is VoIP, that"s why you may be confusing the two. However SIP can also be used for video conferencing or even instant messaging. One of the advantages of SIP over other VoIP protocols is that the SIP communications are just in plain text and humanly readable. It is far easier to troubleshoot something you can actually read. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) basically does as it describes, it sets up the communications channel between two devices. The actual voice portion of the SIP call can be sent over the network using various different compression methods as G711 and G927So to conclude: SIP can be used for VoIP and VoIP can be SIP based, however the two are not the same. When someone refers to SIP, chances are 99 percent that they are talking about VoIP but with other SIP applications arising, that may become different in the future.