Want to help make sure that the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can work well over IPv6? Want to help move the Voice-over-IP (VoIP) industry forward into the world of IPv6?
If so, you can join the newly created “SIP Over IPv6 Task Group” within the SIP Forum. Yesterday in a message to the SIP Forum’s IPv6 mailing list, John Berg, one of the co-chairs of the new effort, announced the formal creation of the task group and put out a call for participants in the groups first teleconference on Thursday, September 13, 2012, at 11:00am US Eastern time.
The charter for the SIP over IPv6 Task Group identifies seven tasks:
- Evaluate the current status of SIP over IPv6 based on standardization work in the IETF and other standard’s bodies or industry forums.
- Evaluate current technologies and strategies for IPv4/IPv6 co-existence and identify impacts of these technologies on SIP-based networks and the user experience.
- Review the work of technical entities, e.g. IPv6 Forum, UCIF, CEA IPv6 Working Group, UPnP, etc. to evaluate progress on adopting IPv6 within the industry, and where necessary develop formal liaisons with them to help coordinate efforts and avoid duplication of efforts.
- Function as a resource for SIP Forum members for technical information and advice on matters related to SIP over IPv6 and SIP in Dual IP networks, as well as infrastructure issues, such as stateful/stateless address auto configuration, security and others.
- Identify areas where existing standards for SIP over IPv6 and dual stack are inadequate or non-existent. This can be in technical documents, network architectures, standards, etc.
- Provide direction and technical leadership in resolving problems related to SIP when using IPv6, or co-existence technologies.
- Develop recommendations to standards organizations based on research, discoveries and suggested courses of action to remedy deficiencies uncovered by the SIP over IPv6 task group.
The work will take place using the public SIP Forum IPv6 mailing list (open to anyone to join) as well as periodic conference calls.
On a personal level, I’m delighted to see this IPv6 Task Group emerge. At SIPNOC 2012, I gave a presentation on SIP and IPv6 (slides available) and facilitated the BOF session where we discussed creating this task group within the SIP Forum. I was thrilled that John Berg of Cable Labs and Andy Hutton of Siemens Enterprise Communications stepped forward to lead the effort and it’s outstanding to see it launch. I’m looking forward to participating in the discussions and to seeing these tasks accomplished.
If you want to help move real-time communications into the IPv6 world, please join the mailing list and help the SIP Forum move this work forward!