Voice Over Internet Protocol

Outline
◼ Define VoIP
◼ Protocols
◼ Advantages / Disadvantages
◼ Current Research
What is it?
◼ VoIP allows you to make telephone calls using a computer
network, over a data network like the Internet. VoIP converts
the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that
travels over the internet then converts it back at the other end
so you can speak to anyone with a regular phone number. When
placing a VoIP call using a phone with an adapter, you'll hear a
dial tone and dial just as you always have. VoIP may also allow
you to make a call directly from a computer using a
conventional telephone or a microphone.

◼ Also referred to as IP Telephony

◼ Voice conversations are turned into digitized data and
packetized for transmission across a network.
Picture
IP address to Phone Number
◼ VoIP look for IP address
◼ Translate Phone numbers to IP addresses
◼ The central call processor is a piece of hardware
running a specialized database/mapping program
called a soft switch.
◼ Soft switches know:
◼ Where the endpoint is on the network
◼ What phone number is associated with that endpoint
◼ The current IP address assigned to that endpoint
◼ If soft switch does not have the information, the
request is handled by another soft switch.
Reasons for VOIP’s growth

◼ Demand for multimedia communication.

◼ Demand for integration of voice and
data networks.
◼ Demand for greater flexibility.
◼ Cost reduction in long distance
telephone calls.
 VOIP Standards
◼ International Telecommunications Union
(ITU)
◼ H.323 – Visual Telephone Systems and
Equipment for Local Area Networks which
Provide a Non-Guaranteed Quality of Service
◼ Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
◼ Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
◼ Media Gateway Control (Megaco)
◼ Signal Transport (SigTran)
Protocols
◼ Used to connect different pieces of hardware.
◼ H.323
◼ Most widely used protocol
◼ provides specifications for real-time, interactive
videoconferencing, data sharing and audio
applications (VoIP)
◼ SIP
◼ More streamlined protocol
◼ Developed specifically for VoIP
◼ Lack of a standard protocol is a problem. Not
always compatible.
VOIP Components
◼ Media Encoding
◼ G.711, Pulse Coded Modulation, Excellent quality, Delay << 1ms
◼ G.723.1, Algebraic Codebook Excited Linear Prediction, Good quality, Delay 67-
97ms
◼ G.729, Conjugate Structure-ACELP, Good quality, Delay 25-35ms
◼ Gateway Control
◼ ITU H.GCP
◼ IETF MGCP, MEGACO, IPDC
◼ Media Transport
◼ Real Time Protocol (RTP)
◼ Real Time Control Protocol (RTCP)
◼ Signaling
◼ H.323 – ITU recommendation for telephone on local area networks
◼ Session Initiation Protocols (SIP)
◼ Session Description Protocol (SDP)
 VOIP using H.323
Audio Services –
Encoding and Audio Services – Control and
Compression Signaling
Application
layer
H.323
RTP RTSP RTCP H.225
H.245
RAS Q.931
Transport
layer UDP UDP TCP

Network
layer IP
Link layer
Underlying LAN or WAN
Physical Technology
layer
 VOIP using SIP
Audio Services – Encoding, Audio Services –
Compression Control and Signaling
Application
layer

RTP RTSP RTCP SIP

RTP
Transport
layer UDP UDP UDP/TCP

Network
layer IP
Link layer
Underlying LAN or WAN
Physical Technology
layer
Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP)
◼ Major Features
◼ User location – Determines the end system
to used for communications.
◼ User availability – Determines called party’s
willingness to engage in communications.
◼ Feature negotiation – Matches device
capabilities.
◼ Call setup – Establishment of call
parameters.
◼ Call handling – Transfer and termination of
H.323 Architecture
Figure 25.27 H.323 example

Find IP address
of gatekeeper

Q.931 message
for setup

RTP for audio exchange

RTCP for management

Q.931 message
for termination
TCP/IP Protocol Suite 15
 H.323 vs SIP

H.323
Designed for multimedia
Philosophy communication over
different types of networks
Designed to handle failure of
Reliability network entities
SIP
Designed to session b/w two
points
No defined procedures for
handling device failure

Encodes in compact binary Encodes in ASCII text

Message format format. Hence easy to debug
Encoding and process

Flexible addressing scheme Understands only URLs style

Addressing using URLs and E.164 addresses
numbers
Monolithic Modular
Architecture
VoIP VS PSTN
◼ PSTN = Public Switched Telephone
Network
◼ VoIP uses Packet Switching which is
more efficient than a dedicated line
◼ Also compression can be used
◼ Can transmit data (video)
Advantages
◼ Cost
◼ Free VoIP to VoIP
◼ Low cost VoIP to Public Switch Telephone Network
(PSTN)
◼ Less bandwidth requirements
◼ Low cost / no cost software and hardware
◼ Mobility
◼ Any internet connection
◼ Growing number of wireless broadband locations
Drawbacks
◼ Quality
◼ High quality PSTN
◼ Variable VoIP dependent on connection
◼ Dependent on wall power
◼ Lost or delayed packets cause drop-out in
voice
◼ Emergency Calls
◼ Hard to find geographic location
◼ Security
◼ Most VoIP services do not support encryption
Analysis of On-Off Patterns in VoIP and
Their Effect on Voice Traffic Aggregation
◼ Wenyu Jian and Henning Schulzrinne
◼ Department of Computer Science at Columbia
University
◼ Studied human speech which consists of talk-
spurts and silence gaps (on-off paterns)
◼ Benefits of silence suppression
◼ Allow higher bandwidth utilization
◼ Echo suppression
◼ Found that spurt distributions is slightly more
“heavy-tailed” than exponential
Assessment of VoIp Quality
over Internet Backbones
◼ Athina P. Markopoulou, Fouad A.
Tobagi, Mansour J. Karam
◼ Assess quality of VoIp
◼ Cosidered
◼ Delay and loss
◼ Voice quality
◼ Playback buffer schemes
Results
◼ Many paths performed poorly for VoIP traffic
due to long delays and large delay variability
◼ Playback buffer schemes – tradeoff between
data loss and increased delay in the buffer
◼ Overall rated VoIP as poor
◼ Mark voice traffic and give it preferential
treatment
◼ Choose playback buffer scheme to match
delay pattern