Session initiation protocol
However, many of its consumer products that allow you to use your Internet connection to make phone calls don’t use the same system to create and control the call.
Services such as Skype, or most of the instant messaging services, rely on their own systems to make sure that the call is delivered safely to its destination. That means it’s impossible for someone who doesn’t have Skype to receive a call from a Skype user.
The technology industry, in the way that it often does, has delivered a solution that you may be hearing a lot more of. SIP – session initiation protocol – allows any program that uses the system to talk to any other program that uses it.
That means as long as you know the address of the person you’re trying to call – the equivalent of knowing the person’s phone number – the two programs can talk to each other.
What SIP does is let people know where you are and through that where to send the call, be it to your computer at work or your home computer.
The great thing about SIP is that there are programs that allow you to use it on your cellphone and almost every phone that’s 3G enabled has a program that lets you use SIP.
So instead of paying Vodacom to make an international call, you use its data network to send the call overseas and you only pay for the data you use.
As long as the person you’re calling has a program that allows SIP on his phone you could save a bundle.
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