Customer Reviews

Internet Communications Using SIP: Delivering VoIP and Multimedia Services with Session Initiation Protocol (Networking Council)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This books presents SIP, the protocol for Session Initiation. It covers many aspects, including conferencing, security, Internet telephony, user preferences.

The book is not 400+ pages as Amazon indicates but just below 300. Why does this matter? Because, with 17 chapters, this gives an average of less than 20 pages per chapter. As you can guess, 20 pages are not sufficient to explain topics such as Internet telephony, or conferencing. Even the SIP protocol is not presented fully. Only the major messages are listed with a short description of their use.

I was also disappointed by the book organization. The SIP Overview chapter which explains how SIP works is chapter 5. All the preceeding chapters mention SIP before we even know what SIP is. This is most confusing unless you have already some SIP knowledge.

The book tries to cover too much. We get a whirlwind tour of many topics, none of them explained appropriately. The book opens many issues that remain unanswered. If you want a shallow overview of SIP, this book may meet your need. But you are likely to quickly need something more in-depth.

I'll keep it short and sweet. I am one of the authors of SIP and
of many of its related technologies that are discussed in
this book. As such, I am frequently asked by people how they
can quickly understand the benefits of SIP technology, why
it is important to them, and what it can enable. The answer is
simple - read the Sinnreich/Johnston book. The book helps you
understand how SIP, its extensions, and related technologies
all fit together, and why SIP is revolutionizing communications.
This is a fabulous piece of work, written by two recognized
leaders. I highly recommend it.

I've been involved in the development of the SIP specification for several years, and currently co-chair the Internet Working Groups overseeing its continued evolution. I'm closely involved with the application of SIP to next-generation mobile phone networks. Between standards work and speaking on SIP frequently at trade shows and conferences I've seen a lot of SIP books and tried to explain SIP to many people. Most of the books on SIP cover the dry technical details of the specification and implementations. This book, "Internet Communications Using SIP" goes into an entirely different realm.

Henry Sinnreich and Alan Johnston are two of the most knowledgeable authorities and notable figures in the SIP world. I expected a lot from them them. They've greatly exceeded my expectations, doing a surprisingly good job of explaining WHY the SIP protocol works the way it does, WHAT sort of advanced services it is making possible, and HOW service providers can use it to enrich their business offerings.

This book is an absolute "must read" for anyone in the industry, especially for people familiar with traditional telephony who are trying to design, market, or implement new telecom services of any kind. If you haven't read this book and Gonzalo Camarillo's new SIP book, don't argue with the old-timers on the SIP mailing lists -- they're likely to just tell you to "RTFB" . . . and this is one of the books they're referring to.

This is a great place to start to give you perspective before you dig into the RFCs. Or if you never intend to read the RFCs, this book will give you enough of an understanding of some of the fundamental technology so that you'll be able to follow some of the deeper issues of SIP. Well written too.

This book gives good insight into the commercial and business aspects of SIP usage, but this is not a technical book on SIP. Also some of the claims the author makes on penetration of SIP in the industry are debatable. Carrier Grade VoIP by Danial Collins is more useful technical book(despite being a non SIP centric book).

A highly recommended book for newcomers to SIP as well as SIP experts. What I liked about the book was updated information on supplementary SIP technologies like PINT, SPIRITS, security et al. It has a very brief yet pertinent introduction to such areas. A very good companion to 'Understanding SIP'.

However impossible it sounds, the authors succeeded in
capturing all essential aspects of SIP telephony.
Application creation, integrating with Internet services,
issues that are still on the agenda -- all that is
covered in a comprehensive manner.

This book is wonderful because this is not a textbook for SIP protocol itsself but is a book representing what SIP being characterized and how different from other voip protocols and what we can do using SIP focusing to the INTERNET COMMUNICATION not just voice over IP nor video over IP. This book is very helpful when we systems engineers propose our customer what additional applocation services can be provided by the system using SIP.

Very interesting approach to SIP had a lot of good information about what the future may bring

I am new to the SIP protocol and thisi book gave me exactly what i was seeking: a comprehensive explanation of the SIP architecture and the uses of SIP. The specific chapters on SIP and User Services, Security, IP telephony, DNS and QoS all provided the basics necessary to understand the tradeoffs and issues with implementing SIP.