SIP and H.

323
Enabling real-time A/V communication

Christian Schlatter, schlatter@switch.ch

2004 © SWITCH
Agenda

• Basic requirements for synchronous communication

• Comparing H.323 and SIP
• Bringing together the two worlds
• SIP videoconferencing clients

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 2

Synchronous communication
requirements (1)

• Examples for synchronous (real-time, interactive)

communication:
– Audio/Video conferencing
– Instant messaging
– White boarding / application sharing

• Examples for asynchronous (delayed) communication:

– E-mail
– Audio/Video streaming
– Discussion boards

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 3

Synchronous communication
requirements (2)

• Address resolution / location service

– Reachability of mobile users → registration

• Signaling
– Initiation/termination of communication (“ringing the phone”)
– Manage multimedia channels

• Transport of real-time data

– Real-time data such as audio, video, or simple text has to be
transported between participants

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 4

Comparing H.323 and SIP:
Address resolution / location service

H.323 SIP
• Endpoints (EP) do register at a • User agents (UA) do register at a
gatekeeper (GK) with their H.323 SIP server (SS) with their SIP URI
alias and actual IP address and actual IP address
• GDS enables wide area addressing • DNS SRV lookup enables wide area
addressing
LRQ GK00 LRQ
DNS
DNS SRV
GK41 GK39
LCF
SS SS
ARQ ACF switch.ch INV iptel.org
registered at
EP1 EP2 INV INV

0041 12681552 0039 123456 UA1

sip:cschlatt@switch.ch UA2

• Since H.323v4: H.323 URL sip:john@iptel.org

← ENUM →
2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 5
Comparing H.323 and SIP:
Call Signaling

H.323 SIP
• Q.931 (ISDN D-Channel) signaling • SIP does not need an established
is used in established call call signaling channel (stateless)
signaling channel (TCP:1720) • SIP messages are usually
transported using UDP:5060
EP1 GK EP2
Setup UA1 SIP Server UA2
Setup INVITE
INVITE
Alerting
Ringing
Alerting
Ringing
Connect OK

Connect OK

ACK
registered at

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 6

Comparing H.323 and SIP:
Transport of real-time data

H.323 SIP
• Call control (H.245) channel • Normally SDP is used for
(TCP:<dynamic port>) is used capability exchange
to do capability exchange • SDP messages are included in
(codecs)* INVITE/OK messages

• RTP is used to transport real-time data

• RTP uses UDP for transport
• RTP/UDP streams normally flow end-to-end
→ FW problems

* FastStart, H.245 tunneling: H.245

messages are transported in call
signaling channel

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 7

Comparing H.323 and SIP (1)

• H.323 is an ITU-T standard

• SIP is an IETF standard (RFC 3261, 2002)

• H.323v1 (1996) was designed for LAN environments

• H.323 is based on H.320 (N-ISDN Videoconferencing)
• Every H.323 version (actual: H.323v5, 2002)
introduced new options
→ complexity grows (backward compatibility)

• From the beginning (first draft 1996), SIP was

designed for the Internet
(scalability, modularity)

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 8

Comparing H.323 and SIP (2) -->

• Actual H.323v5 (2003) is “Internet-ready”

– H.323 URL: e.g. h323:schlatter@switch.ch
– FastStart: media channel info included in call invitation
(Setup/Connect) --> no H.245 channel

• From the beginning, SIP was designed for the

Internet
– SIP URI: e.g. sip:schlatter@switch.ch
– stateless operation
– usage of RTCP features
– layered design

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 9

Comparing H.323 and SIP (3)

SIP + SDP + RTP + A/V codecs ≈ H.323

modular/layered design vertically integrated

protocol suite

• SIP is a generic synchronous communication protocol

• H.323 can only be used for A/V conferencing*

* T.120 additionally provides for data collaboration

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 10

Comparing H.323 and SIP (4) -->

• Since every new version of H.323 has to be backward

compatible, the complexity of H.323 grows
• Not all special features of H.323 (like FECC or
FastUpdate) are available with SIP
--> H.323 is more mature
• Getting compatibility between different SIP vconf clients
needs a lot of administrative efforts
--> maybe we need a SIP-FI Alliance

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 11

Who wins the race (1)

• VoIP is a special case of vconf (only difference:

video streams don’t get established)
• SIP is getting the standard protocol for VoIP
→ Chances are high that SIP will win the race
• Major vconf vendors are implementing SIP in their
products right now

• BUT, prepare for a multi protocol (H.320/H.323/SIP)

environment for a long time
(H.320 is almost 15 years old)

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 12

Who wins the race (2)

• Right now, H.323 is the better choice

– better compatibility
– more widely spread
– vendors have to get used to SIP vconf first

• Existing H.323 hardware will not lose in value

(SIP support will be a software upgrade)

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 13

Bringing together the two worlds (1):
SIP-H.323 Gateway

• Only signaling has to be translated (RTP streams flow

end-to-end, codecs have to be the same)
• IETF draft and prototype implementations are available

SIP UA SIP-H.323 GW H.323 EP

INVITE
Setup
Alerting
RINGING
Connect

H.245
OK

ACK

RTP

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 14

Bringing together the two worlds (2):
Multi protocol MCU
MCU
H.323 SIP
EP UA

H.320 signaling + media streams

EP

• MCU is able to transcode between different codecs

• Our MCU will support SIP in Q4 of this year

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 15

Security considerations -->

• SIP does not solve the “H.323/Firewall riddle”

• Because of scalability issues, RTP streams have to
flow end-to-end
→ VoIP and vconf in general use the peer-to-peer
communication model
→ We should get experience with these protocols now
• Possible solutions:
– ALG/RTP proxy
– H.323/SIP aware FW
• End-to-end privacy and authenticity is still an open
issue

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 16

SIP vconf clients (1)

• Today, only software SIP vconf clients are available

• Trend goes to integration of
– A/V conferencing
– Instant messaging
– Presence

• First check if someone is online (Presence) …

• Then open a text chat session (IM) …
• And eventually open an A/V conversation

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 17

SIP vconf clients (1):
Windows Messenger

• Microsoft is an early adaptor of SIP

(as with NetMeeting/H.323)
• Windows Messenger is integrated into Windows XP
→ Messenger now defines the norm ;-)

Integration of
- Instant Messaging
- Presence
- A/V conferencing
- data conferencing
(T.120)
supports ITU
standard codecs
2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 18
SIP vconf clients (2): -->
eConf

• Radvision’s eConf

• uses Radvision H.323 or

SIP stack
• supports ITU standard
codecs (QCIF/CIF)
• Windowas 2000/XP
• T.120 compliant

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 19

SIP vconf clients (3): -->
Siemens SCS-client

Integration of
- Instant Messaging
- Presence
- A/V conferencing

Windows NT/2000/XP

supports ITU standard codecs

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 20

SIP vconf clients (4): -->
WaveThree Session

• IM and A/V conferencing

• limited data sharing
• Windows 2000/XP,
Mac OS X (!)
• proprietary video codec
(wavelet based)
• H.261/263 support is in
work

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 21

SIP vconf clients (5):
Apple iChat AV

Integration of
- Instant Messaging
- Presence
- A/V conferencing

• proprietary audio codec

(QCELP)
• compatible only with
AOL Instant Messenger
5.5 for Windows

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 22

Conclusion

• Synchronous real-time communication needs three

basic services:
address resolution, call signaling, media transport
• SIP is simpler than H.323 and will be the future vconf
protocol
• SIP-H.323 gateways/MCUs will bring the two worlds
together
• H.323 hardware will get SIP functionality by software
upgrades
• SIP software clients enable the integration of voice,
video, IM, and presence

2004 © SWITCH SIP and H.323 / CC-meeting 23