SIP: The way forward for VoIP?

SIP (session initiation protocol) has become the new standard for VoIP and is expected to become more and more ubiquitous, analysts believe.

According to a new report by research company Frost and Sullivan, SIP is now "widely accepted" in the industry and is set to boom across Europe, as well as in Africa and the Middle East, as operators seek to deliver convergent communications.

The impact on the telecoms industry could potentially be huge, Frost and Sullivan believes, transforming IP communications and turning network elements into mere call-forwarding devices.

Enterprise communications could also be revolutionised by SIP, with business features becoming standardised as a result and PBXs becoming converted to server systems as a result.

However, according to the analysts, a number of issues must be tackled before SIP will take off. The bugbear of application interoperability will need to be worked out - as will compatibility with legacy systems - if the enterprise market is to be won over.

A separate report from analyst house Infonetics shows that the telecoms industry has already got a taste for voice over IP. Infonetics found that carriers' spend on VoIP has now reached the unprecedented level of $2.5bn worldwide.

Communications regulator Ofcom is also starting to express a serious interest in VoIP. The regulator today announced that it estimates there are now 50,000 VoIP users in the UK and it is proposing a new code for VoIP providers to ensure users are in the know about service capability and 999 access.