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HomeNews & EventsSIP Forum NewsUncategorizedSIP Forum Announces New SIPconnect-IT 2012 SIP Trunking Interoperability Testing Event Dec. 3, 2012

SIP Forum Announces New SIPconnect-IT 2012 SIP Trunking Interoperability Testing Event Dec. 3, 2012

Five-day Interop event, hosted by the UNH-IOL and sponsored by CableLabs, will provide worldwide telecom community opportunity to test the SIPconnect 1.1 Specification for SIP trunking interoperability in live network environment

NORTH ANDOVER, MA (September 19, 2012) – The SIP Forum announced today a new SIP trunking interoperability testing initiative to drive industry-wide adoption of the SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Specification. SIPconnect-IT 2012 will be a five-day event held from December 3-7, 2012, at the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL)’s 32,000 square foot facility in Durham, New Hampshire. SIPconnect-IT 2012 will provide application developers, equipment vendors and service providers with a platform to demonstrate and test implementations of this SIP trunking interoperability specification in a live network environment. Registration to SIPconnect-IT 2012 is now available online at http://www.regonline.com/sipconnectit2012.

SIPconnect-IT 2012 is one of the first milestones of the SIP Forum’s new SIPconnect- Interoperability Certification Task Group (SC-IT TG), formed to develop appropriate test plans, Interop events and conformance tools for SIPconnect 1.1. The SC-IT TG was also tasked, in its first phase, with identifying “interworking” issues and developing a process for resolving issue disputes in order to speed adoption and implementation. In its second phase, the group aims to evolve its testing program into a formal, comprehensive SIPconnect 1.1 Compliance Program. Ultimately, the SC-IT Task Group aims to accelerate the adoption of the SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Specification and create a formal testing certification program for compliance.

The SC-IT Task Group is co-chaired by Alan Johnston of Avaya and Robert Kinder of Cox Communications. Additional participants include SIP Forum Technical Working Group Director Spencer Dawkins and Task Group Chief Document Editor James Swan, as well as many other participants of the SIP Forum’s longstanding Technical Working Group. The SC-IT Task Group charter is published online at https://www.sipforum.org/content/view/393/285/.

The primary goal of the SIPconnect-IT 2012 event is to provide a venue where attendees can perform technical interoperability testing among and between products or services that use the SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Specification published by the SIP Forum, and adhere to the requirements of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (“IETF”) and associated companion technologies and protocols.

“SIPconnect-IT 2012 marks an important step in galvanizing the industry toward universal adoption of and compliance with the SIPconnect 1.1 Specification,” Marc Robins, SIP Forum President and Managing Director, said. “It will give the IP communications engineering community an opportunity to put the theory and ideals of SIPconnect 1.1 into action and begin the hard work of identifying and ultimately resolving key internetworking issues related to SIP trunking.”

SIPconnect-IT 2012 will be hosted by the UNH-IOL. The laboratory focuses on testing services for data, telecom and storage networking technologies, helping to efficiently and cost effectively speed go-to-market time for products. As an independent organization, the UNH-IOL offers confidential, vendor-neutral testing that is recognized industry-wide as evidence of interoperability and conformance to technical standards.

“Through collaboration with the SIP Forum, the UNH-IOL is helping service providers to overcome interoperability issues experienced when deploying SIP trunking services to their enterprise customers,” said James Swan, Research and Development, IP Technologies, UNH-IOL. “SIPconnect-IT 2012 will be fundamental in introducing SIPconnect 1.1 compliant products to the market and ultimately, driving widespread industry adoption of the specification.”

The newly developed SIPconnect 1.1 Interoperability Test Plan focuses on testing interoperability between different vendor products and network elements involved in SIP Trunking services. Testing procedures will aim to verify interoperability between an Enterprise SIP-PBX and a Service Provider network SIP Signaling Entity (SP-SSE). Test cases cover industry-accepted requirements for the SIPconnect 1.1 interface, as well as applicable IETF RFCs, and will be measured against the requirements of the SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Recommendation. Current test groups include: Registration Mode, Static Mode, Basic Voice Calls, Extended Call Features and Media and Session Interactions.

The SIPconnect 1.1 Technical Recommendations, ratified by the SIP Forum Board of Directors in 2011, provides an industry-wide, standards-based framework for direct IP peering between SIP-enabled enterprises and service provider networks. This framework helps to ensure the interoperability of network elements across the IP environment and provides best practices guidelines for vendors and service providers as they develop new equipment and IP applications. The recommendations feature an array of enhancements from Version 1.0, including more comprehensive guidelines about SIP endpoint and media endpoint functionality, security, as well as standards-based support for both registration (SIP REGISTER-based) and static (DNS-based) modes of operation, incorporating the newly-approved IETF RFC 6140.

For more information about the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation Version 1.1, please visit the SIP Forum’s main SIPconnect webpage at: https://www.sipforum.org/content/view/273/227/.

For more information about SIPconnect-IT 2012, please visit https://www.sipforum.org/content/view/400/287/. Registration for SIPconnect-IT 2012 is officially open at http://www.regonline.com/sipconnectit2012.

About the SIP Forum

The SIP Forum is an IP communications industry association that engages in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology, such as the development of industry recommendations, the SIPit interoperability and testing events, special interoperability workshops, educational seminars, and general promotion of SIP in the industry. One of the Forum’s notable technical activities is the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation – a standards-based recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and VoIP service provider networks. Other important Forum initiatives include work in Fax-over-IP interoperability, User Agent Configuration, VRS (Video Relay Service) interoperability, security, and SIP and IPv6. For more information, please visit: https://www.sipforum.org.

Media Contact

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Elevate Communications
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john@elevatecom.com

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